NRL assistant referees coach Bill Harrigan has been dropped as a video referee until further notice following his controversial and incorrect ruling in St George Illawarra's Monday night win over Manly.

Referees boss Robert Finch said a review of the match on Tuesday confirmed that Dragons centre Mark Gasnier should not have been awarded his try in 30th minute of the 32-10 victory because he clearly lost the ball.

After the review, the vastly-experienced Harrigan conceded he'd made a mistake and should be accountable and Finch dropped him from video refereeing duties until further notice.

"We expect people to be accountable and Robert Finch should expect that of me, Harrigan said.

Finch said the decision to drop one of the game's most experienced officials should be a wake-up call for all officials.

"That was a very senior team (of match officials) and we would expect a higher standard of performance all-round," he said.

"Like any squad of people there are times when you can suffer a drop in form but it isn't something that we can continue to accept and certainly not at this time of year.

"I've already acknowledged that some of the squad are not performing at the standard that I know they can reach.

"We have been working on that with them but we can only maintain that approach for so long.

"We do have people in the wider squad that are in form and who have a lot to offer and the message is very clearly that the focus now will be on form and not reputation in the weeks ahead.

"People are always going to argue about refereeing decisions at this time of year whether the referee is right or wrong and everyone has to accept that mistakes will happen from time to time.

"I can live with the criticism if we are performing to our best but we need to be able to look at ourselves honestly and say that we are doing the best we can.

"There is no doubt that at the moment we can improve things and no doubt about the commitment this group has to getting the best possible result.'

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