Breaking down the NRL obstruction controversies

Another week, another refereeing controversy. This time the spotlight is firmly placed on the obstruction rule, as fans, players, coaches, referees and video referees seem to have no clue what is and isn’t an obstruction.

Friday saw three controversial obstruction rulings effectively determine the outcome of two of the three Good Friday matches and now it’s time to break down what exactly happened and if the right decision was made.

Let’s start with the first controversial ruling of the weekend, a no try to the Bulldogs in just the 10th minute of their clash against the Rabbitohs.

After a kick on the final tackle, the Dogs were attempting to keep the ball alive and it eventually found its way into Josh Morris’ hands. After spotting some space on the outside, he ran across the field, behind teammate Greg Eastwood and delivered a questionable cutout to a wide-open Corey Thompson, who fell over the line for an easy try.

Or so we thought. After just a couple of looks at the replay, the video ref determined that Morris running behind Eastwood was an act of obstruction and awarded the Rabbitohs a penalty.

But was it really an obstruction? Under the laws of the game, an obstruction “is the illegal act of impeding an opponent who does not have the ball”. But the official rulebook continues, with the help of some extremely confusing diagrams, to explain some situations where obstruction has and hasn’t occurred.

Herein lies half the problem; the law book has so many different explanations and technicalities that it is making a relatively simple decision very complex. Most of the time it is very clear what is and isn’t an obstruction. This was one of those times; using the eye test, no player was obstructed, even though Morris ran behind his teammate.

Additionally, under the laws of the game, the only mention of players running behind a teammate is in respect to a blocker play, not broken-field play like this.

There was no obstruction; no player was impeded. All of the Souths’ defenders had a chance to stop Morris but his footwork was too good. It’s now important to compare this decision to the decision to award a no try to the Roosters back in Round 4 against Manly.

These two scenarios are very different. In the Bulldogs’ case, it was broken play, from a kick, with players running back onside and scrambling to make a tackle. Naturally, with players everywhere, some Bulldogs players would be in front of the ball. When Morris ran behind Eastwood, every Souths player had an opportunity to tackle him, they just weren’t able to.

In the Roosters’ case, it was a structured attacking play, from a play-the-ball. Mitchell Pearce ran across field with the ball, with the intention of running a slider play out the back to Michael Jennings. Instead, he dummied to the blocker runner, Boyd Cordner, and ran behind him. By holding on to the football, the Manly defenders, David Williams and Jamie Lyon, were not able to tackle the two players they had marked, Jennings and Cordner, respectively. There was only no contact because Lyon was good enough to avoid contact, but by then the damage was done. Cordner had impeded Lyon, Pearce had held on to the ball for too long and gained an advantage by running behind his teammate.

So the video refs got the first obstruction ruling of the weekend wrong.

The second obstruction ruling came in the second half of the match, with the game in the balance. The Bulldogs were trailing 14 points to 6 and were desperate to claw themselves to within two points of the Bunnies with just 12 minutes remaining.

The Bulldogs ran a slider, or sweep, play with two blocker runners. Both of these men were decoy runners and their role was to suck in the Rabbitohs’ defenders. Making this task easier was the fact that the Rabbitohs were already short, if you include the decoy runners; the Bulldogs had a six on four advantage. During the play, Josh Jackson, one of the two blocker runners, made contact with John Sutton, creating a three on two advantage out the back for the Bulldogs. With Sutton checked, the Dogs got the ball to winger Corey Thompson and he managed to evade a tidal wave of cover defenders and crash over.

Again, the decision was referred to the video referee to determine whether or not Jackson had impeded Sutton or if the contact was simply incidental. Again, it’s time to refer to the NRL Rule Book and Referees’ Guidelines.

When running a slider play, there are six criteria that the video refs must tick off for it to be awarded a try. Firstly, the blocker runner must not stop in the middle of the defensive line. Tick, neither Jackson nor Eastwood stopped in the middle of the defensive line, Jackson continued running through the line after the contact and Eastwood stopped before he hit the line.

Secondly, “‘Block’ or ‘Flat’ runner[s] (who do not receive the ball) must not run at (chest or outside shoulder of) defender[s] and initiate contact”. Now we get a bit of conjecture, the video referees had to determine who initiated the contact and what Jackson ran at. From the back camera angle it looks as though Sutton has his eyes firmly on Perrett, the ball carrier, and he steps into Jackson as Perrett moves across the field, behind Jackson.

Thirdly, a ball carrier must not run behind an active blocker runner. This is exactly what saw the Roosters undone in Round 4, when Pearce ran behind Cordner and the video refs had to determine whether Perrett ran behind Jackson with the ball. Linked with criterion number 3 is criterion number 4, the attacking player running the slider must catch the ball on the outside of the inside shoulder of the man running the blocker line. So Perrett can run behind Jackson with the ball as long as he catches the ball once he’s beyond Jackson’s inside shoulder. Perrett has done exactly that, partly because Jackson has taken a step infield while tangled with Sutton, but criterion 3 and criterion 4 have both been checked.

Criteria 5 and 6 are that the attacking team will not be penalised if the defender changes his line or if the defender initiates the contact. So the Bulldogs have cleared all 6 steps and the video referees award the try.

Simple. Michael Maguire can stop complaining. Only it’s not so simple. This try still needs some further explanation and analysis.

Firstly, let’s discuss Sutton. Realising his team was short of numbers, Sutton was trying to backpedal, mark Josh Reynolds and slide across to Perrett as soon as the ball was passed. This means he is watching Reynolds until he passes the ball, once the ball is passed he immediately looks across towards Perrett and begins to slide, but as he does this he turns into a charging Josh Jackson.

Crucially, Jackson does not take Sutton out, he simply checks him, this allows Sutton to recover and attempt to make a tackle on try-scorer Corey Thompson, which he is unable to make. If Sutton is taken to the ground and is not able to make that play, it’s not a try, but he was simply checked and thus it’s a try.

Secondly, we must focus on youngster Kirisome Auva’a’s defence. He rushed up out of the line and was in two minds, jam in on the second blocker, Eastwood, or hold back and slide; in the end, he did neither. Eventually he recovered pretty well and slid onto Perrett but by then the damage was done, Bryson Goodwin was faced with a two on one and Thompson was left open.

Those arguing that the Rabbitohs would have had a three on three if Sutton was not taken out, have to look at the video again, Auva’a only just got across to Perrett in time, he was never getting across to his real man, Tim Lafai, in time.

This try was just some good attack with some excellent decoy running and the video referees were right to award it.

The third and final contentious decision saw Manly trailing the Cowboys by six points with ten minutes to go when they seemingly threw a forward pass, which was missed by the referees.

In the ensuing set, Manly hooker Matt Ballin passed the ball to Kieran Foran, cutting out Jamie Buhrer in the process. Buhrer then stopped in the middle of the defensive line, getting in the way of a Cowboys defender before Foran stepped back through the hole which was created by Buhrer obstructing Ray Thompson.

As outlined earlier, as soon as the player stops in the middle of the defensive line, it is immediately a penalty. No need to continue through any more steps in the process. Buhrer stopped in the defensive line and obstructed Thompson. It is a clear obstruction any way you look at it and everybody in the stadium or watching at home knew this except for the most important men – those making the decision.

Much of the blame for this decision must lay with Paul Mellor. Whenever the video referees make a decision on obstruction, the final say lies with the ex-player sitting in the box – in this case Mellor. This makes the decision even more baffling, ex-players are meant to understand how the game works, how it’s played, what the players are doing and why. How can an ex-player make such an outrageously bad decision? A decision that ultimately cost the Cowboys the match.

Obstruction rulings are very complex, heck I’ve just written 1700 words on just three decisions, but ultimately most of the time it is not very difficult to determine what is and isn’t an obstruction. If it looks like an obstruction and feels like an obstruction, it probably is an obstruction.

Yet the men in the middle and those in the sky are getting it wrong time and again. And it is not good enough.

When you have a six-step checklist to move through and you fail at the first step it is not good enough. I hope that Tony Archer is true to his word and heads roll this week.

Now don’t get me started on the decision to cost the Storm the match on Sunday afternoon.