Canberra coach Ricky Stuart says over-officiating is making the NRL “sterile” after a whopping 26 penalties during the Raiders’ loss to Manly on Sunday.

Stuart urged the NRL to encourage their referees to let games flow before they become too “boring” and the fans walk away.

“It’s just a little bit inconsistent when you’ve got games that have seven penalties and then we had 26,” Stuart told NRL360.

“You could have 25-30 penalties per game if the refs wanted to pick up every infringement at the ruck and every offside, you can have those and we’ve been down that track.

“It worries me because my big concern is we’re becoming too sterile. I heard Phil Gould talk about taking a player out of each team and making it 12 on 12, it would be less of a wrestle and an open affair and it’d be a really attractive game and I certainly agree.

“But we’re doing our best to make it 15-a-side and a boring game to where we’re not going to have people come to watch it.”

Canberra’s clash against Manly turned into a slugfest at the ruck and Stuart said fans buy tickets to see attacking action.

“It’s not the fabric of rugby league in regards to having 30 penalties blown in a game. The 26 on the weekend was too many,” Stuart said.

“They’re an attractive attacking team too, (coach) Des (Hasler) has got some wonderful attacking players there and it wasn’t the open, attractive style of football we thought we were going to get.

“But if that’s the trend that’s going to be set going into the finals, nitpicking games, we need to know as coaches so we can actually get prepared to get into the gutter and have a mud fight.”