Johnston was best afield with Travis Brooke, but after leading 13-0 the Blacks were guilty of too many errors and poor discipline having two players sin-binned.

"I thought we were the better side but we handed the win to Merewther," a disappointed Blacks coach Matt Thomas said.

The Blacks pain was compounded with Michael Howell injuring his knee and likely to be sidelined for a number of weeks.

"Michael Howell looks like he will be out for a while, it looks like he has done his knee That's going to hurt," Thomas said.

Ee Bacigalupo kicked a late penalty as Merewether came from 13-0 down to snatch an 18-16 win.

Debutant fly-half Lachlan Bradford and winger Chris Martin crossed for tries in the first half to give the home side a 13-0 lead.

The Greens responded through lock Cam Turner, who was outstanding, and halfback Eli McCulloch to close the gap to 16-15.

With time almost up, Maitland, who had the dominant pack, were pinged for a penalty at the scrum and Bacigalupo made no mistake from in front.

Thomas said it was a particularly disappointing loss as the win was there to be taken.

"You can't play with 13 or 14 men, it doesn't work. We are getting hammered by the referees every week and you just can't give those opportunities to the opposition," he said.

"We are all disappointed because we lost that game ourselves, we've got to take that on our shoulders and we move forward.

"In the second half we only had about 10 per cent of the ball. You are never going to win a game like that.

"Then when we got the ball we rushed and pushed things.

"There are no alarm bells, it's just ourselves. We are not blaming anybody else but ourselves."

Thomas said James Johnston was best afield in his milestone game.

"Jame Johnston was sensational and Travis Brook was sensational. James was player of the day and deserving.

"Lachy Bradford steered the ship around at five-eight which was great to see.

Thomas said the Blacks needed to take the referee out of the equation with better discipline, but he would be seeking clarification on the ruling for a yellow card handed to Marcus Christensen for "intent to hurt".

"Marcus is an aggressive player and plays hard, but I have never heard of any sort of rule like that.

"Jimmy (Johnston) was yellow-carded for continued infringements. You can deal with that, but I've got a player who is questioning himself and the way he plays after this call of intent to hurt. I've never heard of it and will be seeking clarification on it."

Thomas said the simplest answer to address penalties was to take the referee out of the equation.

"We can't give them excuses to get involved and that's what we are doing," he said

Thomas said the Blacks had opportunities to lead by more at half-time and had failed to finishing opportunities through poor ball security.

"We're just not finishing our opportunities, we had another three or four scoring opportunities we didn't finish.

"But with the new style and the direction we are taking we are going to have these problems up front. I'd rather have them now than at the end of the year.