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Would the sky fall in if someone awarded a penalty try? That must be the fear of match officials – from the referees through to the bunker boys – based on Wests Tigers forward Chris Lawrence’s effort not having one awarded on Sunday.
Lawrence was chasing a Robbie Farah grubber kick into the in-goal when he was pulled away from the ball by Melbourne centre Richard Kennar at Leichhardt Oval.
Kennar succeeded in preventing Lawrence from having a fair shot at getting to the kick first and grounding the ball and the referee sent it to the bunker for adjudication on a possible penalty try.
The verdict was that it could not be considered certain Lawrence would have scored because the bounce of the ball would have made it difficult for him anyway and Kennar was sin-binned for a professional foul.
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Rubbish. Unless he totally stuffed up the actual grounding of the ball, Lawrence would have scored, and that should have been enough to award a penalty try. Otherwise, when do you ever award one?
When is anything ever unequivocally certain in such circumstances? In all probability, Lawrence would have scored.
As Lawrence saw it, the ball bounced from right to left across the path in front of him, but it wasn’t that dramatic a change in direction.
The only reason Lawrence was unable to make the adjustment was that Kennar’s interference meant he was pulled to the right. No interference and Lawrence would have been first to the ball ahead of the scrambling Storm defenders.
These are incidents where the bunker system, just like the video referee system before it, but with better technology, can make a difference. It has plenty of time to consider how an incident would have most likely played out without interference and plenty of video angles to use in the process.
But the decision that should have been made, wasn’t made, and the Tigers – and the game itself – were failed in the process.
I’m not making excuses for the Tigers for what was ultimately a 19-18 loss to the Storm in golden point extra-time. I’m just pointing out what appears to be a lack of courage in the decision-making process when it comes to possible penalty tries.
Seriously, could anyone have argued with conviction that Lawrence wouldn’t have scored? Apart from the old “well, it still wasn’t certain he would’ve scored” line? Nothing is certain unless it actually happens, but some things are sure enough.
The Lawrence no-try wasn’t the only key decision by the match officials to go against the Tigers, but the fact remains the Tigers are an often naive team that mostly bring losses upon themselves by taking wrong options or missing opportunities.
In the end, the game came down to a field goal shoot-out, and you just knew that if the Tigers didn’t nail one soon then Melbourne halfback Cooper Cronk was going to punish them by putting one straight between the posts.
That was how it turned out.
One could point to the inexperience of 21-year-old halves Mitchell Moses and Luke Brooks and cut the Tigers some slack that way, but then you look at another 21-year-old halves player – Brisbane’s Anthony Milford – and marvel at a young player who is on top of his game.
Milford’s performance in the 53-0 win by the Broncos over Newcastle at Suncorp Stadium on Saturday was out of this world. He is the most exciting player in the NRL and someone to watch no matter which team you support.
Some people might have thought it was rubbing it in by Milford to kick a field goal at 52-0, but he wouldn’t have meant to be disrespectful to the Knights. He was just having fun, which is what kids do.
What an amazing player.
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