- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
NRL officials have dismissed Canberra coach David Furner’s pie-in-the-sky suggestion to have for-and-against tallies re-calibrated to compensate for refereeing blunders.
Furner, aggrieved at several crucial refereeing calls that went against his side in their 24-19 loss to Melbourne last weekend, said clubs deserved something from acknowledged errors.
Video referee Phil Cooley was sacked this week for incorrectly awarding the Storm an early try against the Raiders, while senior referee Jared Maxwell was also dropped for a costly error in Cronulla’s golden-point loss to Wests Tigers.
With the potential for points differential to decide finalists in a close competition, Furner made a stunning claim for scorelines to be adjusted post-match to reflect dud refereeing calls.
“With that try that was awarded to the Storm … is there a chance that although in that case the Storm get the two points that you get to rectify your for-and-against?” Furner asked.
“If it needed to be awarded a try and it wasn’t, or vice versa, there could be a way there to take four points away or six points away or add, which will affect the for or against.
“You can’t change the two (competition) points – and I’m not looking at that – but certainly in this competition, for-and-against is going to be massive.”
NRL director of football operations Nathan McGuirk dismissed the suggestion outright.
“We understand the disappointment from coaches when errors are made, but I can’t see how the suggestion could be workable,” McGuirk told AAP.
“It would be clearly against the laws of the game.”
An opening weekend marred by several prominent refereeing errors has coincided with revelations the NRL is investigating the possibility of adopting a captain’s challenge system to help eradicate mistakes.
The suggestion was met with mixed responses from the rugby league community, with some expressing concern over the effect it could have on the flow of the game.
But Parramatta lock Reni Maitua was in favour of the cricket-style proposal, which could be trialled in the under 20s competition.
“If you think there’s some doubt in a try, you want the right decision,” Maitua said.
“You don’t bust your guts for 80 minutes to lose a game because of a poor decision.”
Referees boss Bill Harrigan urged caution.
“I’ll support the captain’s challenge providing we get the parameters tight,” Harrigan told AAP.
“We could open up a real hornet’s nest.
“When you bring up rule changes, there is a lot of impact and repercussions on a game which must be thought through properly before you even start thinking about bringing it in.”
And despite being forced to drop two officials after the opening weekend of the season, Harrigan said too much attention was being afforded to refereeing errors.
“The referees being stood down, that had to happen because that was a black and white rule that they should have known,” Harrigan said.
“There were eight games of rugby league over the weekend and some of them went down to the wire and were fantastic games.
“Unfortunately, the only thing we talked about is the decision at the end of the Cronulla game.”
Reckon you can pick the winning team? Build your own dream team with Draftstars daily fantasy and compete on any match. For great odds on the NRL head on over to PlayUp. Imagine what you could be buying instead. Set a deposit limit.