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“There’s a new rule in place this year where you are not allowed to have blockers impede a player who’s chasing down the kicker of a field goal.
“We had a player who was impeded by two blockers. They’ll have three or four days now to try and create a reason on why this wasn’t a wall. There’s two blokes standing in the road impeding players. Apparently that’s allowed now.”
Ricky Stuart was right to be mad. His side was dudded by dreadful officiating. While he was quite understanding of the pressure the on field officials are under, there was no shying away from the fact that they’d stuffed up.
Coming home with a wet sail against the Panthers in Saturday’s game, the Raiders – who had been the second best side on Bathurst’s beautiful Carrington Park for the first 65 minutes – managed to level the scores with minutes to go through a sensational aerial try to Jordan Rapana. It looked like the Panthers might lose yet another close one.
Aidan Sezer then narrowly missed a field goal. The Panthers then went up the other end and Jamie Soward missed to the right.
Then the Raiders’ second gamer, Clay Priest, dropped the ball on the halfway line with just under two minutes to go.
From the scrum the Panthers worked it up the centre of the field and set for a another attempt.
Peter Wallace duly took the shot and through the sticks it sailed.
But the Raiders remonstrated that the defence had been obstructed and referee Gavin Reynolds sent the matter to the NRL bunker.
The replays clearly showed that Trent Merrin and one other Panther took up positions that obstructed dummy half marker Paul Vaughn getting out to put pressure on Wallace.
Inexplicably on review the bunker declared it was all OK and that “there was a gap big enough for him (Vaughn) to get through.”
What?!
Not only were the two Panthers in Vaughn’s way forming an illegal wall, they were arguably both in front of the man playing the ball and as such were sleepers who could not interfere with the play in anyway – as an illegal wall or otherwise.
They were positively in positions where if the dummy half had passed to them it would have been a forward pass.
Further, both the man playing the ball and Merrin clearly obstruct Vaughn’s passage. The ball player grabs Paul Vaughn and then Trent Merrin deliberately moves his 105kg shoulder into Vaughn’s path. The combination of the two brought Vaughn down.
It should have meant an instant penalty to the Raiders.
Although there were four on field officials there to monitor the play – including the new rule that was put in place this season – none felt able to make the call. They referred it to their security blanket: the bunker.
While we have seen the the bunker deny trys on some of the most wafer thin, technical premises this season, the bunker staff decided to make their own rules up for the occasion, in spite of spectacularly clear evidence that the rules were broken.
The rules say no walls allowed. The two players were clearly not decoy runners, they weren’t running. The only movement made was by Merrin to drop a shoulder into Vaughn. The vision clearly shows this. Any mention of gaps and their relative size was as irrelevant as it was bizarre. The very fact that the bunker was talking about gaps was an acknowledgement of the illegal wall.
Was there a work experience kid running the bunker?
Was it “Pot luck rule interpretation” day at NRL HQ?
Do the officials even know the rules they are meant to be officiating?
Seriously Tony Archer, what is this rubbish your team is dishing up? Their justification for declaring that a clear obstruction was just fine and dandy had less merit than a third grader’s last minute homework.
When I later relayed the bunker’s rationale to Vaughn after the match he was incredulous. “A big enough space to get through? They pulled me down!”
Yes they did. And that’s no easy thing to do to a 193cm 110kg lad who is determined to get somewhere. It was obvious for all to see. The rule – the new rule brought in this very season – was clearly breached, and then the bunker found a reason to say it was just fine.
And now the focus will wrongly be on Ricky Stuart for pointing this out. You see, no matter how badly the officials fail in their role of properly officiating the game, clubs cannot criticise them.
It’s now become a rule for the NRL to hide behind when they have stuffed up.
Every Raiders player and fan has a right to be incensed at this total failure of the officials to properly do the job that they are very well paid to do.
The right thing for Tony Archer to do is to sack those in the bunker who declared that Vaughn wasn’t obstructed, and maybe to follow them out the door as well.
Or they could choose to be pathetic and fine Ricky Stuart for pointing out the truth.