Cowboys coach Ian Millward has called for NRL referees to let players get on with the game in the wake of the club's penalty riddled 26-20 loss to the Titans on Saturday night.

Both teams were hammered at times by referee Bernard Sutton who blew the whistle 18 times during the game.

And both coaches were left bemused by the 75th minute sin binning of Gold Coast's Luke O'Dwyer after Sutton had repeatedly warned him and captain Scott Prince about offside infringements.

A more pensive Millward said the penalties had slowed the game down to a crawl and played a part in their 17th loss of the season.

"In the first half we had our backs to the wall a fair bit, I was probably disappointed with some of the penalties, I think (for) both teams," he said.

He empathised with the Titans who were forced to defend the last five minutes with 12 players and the Cowboys on the attack.

"We were on the receiving end and then towards the end of the game it looked like (Sutton was evening the ledger), I thought they were hard done by getting a bloke sent to the sin bin," he said.

"I don't know where that came from. All those little things slowed the game down, let's get the game going."

The caretaker mentor was left to rue a worrying trend by this year's Cowboys after they again fumbled their way through 12 match errors.

The club has lost five games this year by a margin of six points or less and Millward said their error rate was costing them dearly.

"The second half we had more ball but just at vital stages we coughed it up when we started to build pressure and looked like we were going to get the ascendancy," he said.

"That was probably the difference.

"I don't think anyone let anyone down with their attitude, it's just execution a few times which was a little bit off the pace."

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