SAINTS coach Shaun McRae was left fuming by an alleged racial comment during his side's 31-18 defeat at Leeds on Friday night.

The Australian demanded disciplinary action after hooker Keiron Cunningham was sin binned for getting involved in an incident when comments were made by Jamie Mathiou towards Apollo Perelini.

The incident occured 10 minutes before the end of a passionate and thrilling game.

Mathiou later apologised for incident, denying he is a racist and McRae agreed to drop the issue. Referee John Connolly made a report to the Rugby League authorities who then decided to take no further action.

After the game, McRae said: "There was a racial slur made against one of our players and Keiron was just trying to protect his team mate. All he did was push a guy out of the ruck."

McRae said the sin binning and earlier decisions to allow tries by Adrian Morley and Daryl Powell saw Saints given a rough deal by officials while playing Leeds for the second time this season.

He added: "We were beaten by a better side but there were mitigating circumstances. That's the second time we've played Leeds and the second time they've had decision go their way.

"The second try was clearly forward and may be we should start having eye tests for video referees after he gave the third try.

"There's no way he grounded that ball from what I saw and that's what Paul Atcheson said afterwards as well."

McRae said playing a hard game against third placed Halifax Blue Sox only five days earlier may have taken its toll while Leeds had had seven days to recover.

He said: "It was a really torrid performance against Halifax last week and a few guys were out there carrying injuries. We didn't match the intensity of last week over 80 minutes.

"This was the first time in five weeks that we didn't follow the game plan and that got us frustrated.

"We had the old problem with consistency again this week as well. The players I've got out there are world beaters one week and not there the next. There were some that were superb last week but weren't quite there this time."

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