Des Hasler was seeing red last week when his team were wrongly denied an opportunity to force golden point against St George Illawarra.

But even though he welcomed the NRL’s apology, Hasler still identifies plenty of grey areas.

The Manly coach has urged referees to take their time to avoid situations like last week, where they were robbed of a late penalty.

The NRL was forced to admit the error, which resulted in both whistleblowers and touch judges being demoted this weekend.

“At least they’re acknowledging their accountability,” Hasler said, ahead of Sunday’s seventh-round clash with Canberra.

“I was really impressed with the way (Daly) Cherry-Evans went about it.

“I still think at the very end when he was confronting the referee, they still could’ve made an overcall on it.

“I can’t remember the timing of that now, how long it was, but you’ll see they’ll change a goal line drop out ruling to a 20-metre restart.

“So they had plenty of time to confer, check with bunker, get a tip from the referees in the grandstand to say that we need to go back, ‘that’s a penalty’.”

But even though the matter was put to bed with NRL referees boss Bernard Sutton, Hasler believes the aerial contest remains a hot topic for the game.

The two-time premiership-winning coach saw two instances in the Anzac Day clash between the Dragons and Sydney Roosters that caught his eye.

“I’m sure (Dragons coach) Paul McGregor may be looking at something as well with the catch contest,” Hasler said.

“I thought he’s entitled to think the one under the posts with (Corey) Norman contesting was a penalty. So that’s fine.

“(But) a set later, I didn’t see much difference between the (Daniel) Tupou one. He went up and contested that one.

“I still think they’d still need to clarify a little bit around the whole contest on kick catch to get that consistency, to make it less grey.”

Meanwhile, the Sea Eagles, who take on a Raiders side flying high after four straight wins, could benefit from Canberra fullback Charnze Nicoll-Klokstad being in doubt with a knee injury.

STATS THAT MATTER

* An average 51.5 points have been scored in the past 10 clashes between Manly and Canberra.

* Manly is conceding a league-high 3.3 penalties per game inside their 20-metre zone.

* If the Raiders win by 13 points or more, they will finish a round on top of the ladder for the first time since 2005.