The NRL has altered its stance on allowing the bunker to rule on live play, with video referees to call for penalties that are now “likely” to draw charges from the match review committee.
Just two weeks after coaches recommended the bunker be curtailed of its powers, referees boss Tony Archer reacted to his officials missing St George Illawarra forward Joel Thompson’s high shot on Thursday.
Thompson will miss one game after taking the early guilty plea for a swinging arm on Canberra five-eighth Blake Austin that broke his nose, and also went unnoticed by the on-field referees.
A confused Raiders coach Ricky Stuart questioned whether he had missed a memo from league headquarters.
Archer said his men simply missed the penalty.
“The bunker reviewed the incident, (but) for the bunker to be involved in foul play, they need to be satisfied that it’s more likely the person will be charged,” Archer told the NRL website.
“They have to make that assessment in real time, unlike the match review committee who have time to process it in more detail. In those circumstances, we elected to play on.
“But it should’ve been given a penalty on-field.”
The central command centre had seemingly been stripped of its powers following a coaches meeting a fortnight ago where they agreed on the on-field officials be left in charge of foul play.
Previously, video referees could get involved for “reportable offences”, however Archer claimed that the rule had never been properly defined.
“We now want them to be satisfied that it’s more likely the person will be charged,” he said.
“They’re looking at it in those details now, so until we get back before the competitions committee, we’ll stick with this.”
In good news for Canberra, Archer praised his officials for calling the first ever penalty for a wall, just one round after the Raiders should’ve got the same call in a last-minute loss to Penrith.
“Obviously a couple of weeks ago we related to one that we didn’t rule correctly out of the Penrith-Canberra game,” Archer said.
“But the action of the St George players, where they lined up side by side next to the play the ball and impeded the defender from having a direct line at the player in possession, that’s a penalty.”
Kaks
Roar Guru
Ricky didnt actually complain about the situation.
Kaks
Roar Guru
Here we go again, the NRL putting rules and protocols in place that are reactive to a single situation in one weekend.
Ken
Guest
Should have been a penalty to St George in front of the posts. You can't obstruct players that are clearly metres offside - the offence of being offside is clearly prior to the obstruction. Would have robbed us of the Aitken try but Sticky's complaint last week clearly did the job for him.
no one in particular
Roar Guru
Make it up as you go along, good work Greenburg. Gallop will be so proud
db
Guest
It's funny how the NRL need the bunker to minutely analyse tries for the slightest hint of an attacking player obstructing a defender but refuse to address the disgrace that is defenders running illegal blocks on attackers attempting to contest a kick in the air.
Doc79
Roar Rookie
Flip flop, week to week. Really does anyone know where the goalposts are these days?
Mike from tari
Guest
What constitutes a wall, when Thurston complained that Smith wasn't square, the Cowboys had 1 player who tried to block Smith, he missed Smith but got the other marker, so Paul Green has already worked out that one player is not a wall, so if JT had kicked the FG & that one player blocked Smith what would have happened, would the FG have been disallowed & a penalty awarded & what will happen if this happens in the future, I bet the refs would not do anything.
Bryan
Guest
So pick and stick is not in the NRL vocub?
Christov
Guest
I would have to agree - the NRL is running reactionary revolution, changing their stance each week. There is likely to be another incident where the ref clearly gets it wrong and then the bunker will be allowed to rule on it again. The only way to stop this is to let refs speak about why they made a call. Sure you will get answers like, "I didn't see a rake" or "I thought there was two in the tackle". Leave the decision on the field, they are not robots. I would much rather go back to the days of a in-goal ref making a call in real time, if he thought it looked like a try it would be awarded, no fuss no mess. Now we will dis-allow a try for 0.005mm of white grass touching the ball, and we will 'conclusively' come to that decision after watching multiple camera angles between 5-10 times to come to this - just crazy crazy stuff.
Arnold Krewanty
Guest
The Bunker = final nail in the NRL coffin
Zedman
Roar Rookie
The lunatics are definitely running the asylum.
jimmmy
Guest
One step forward. Next get them out of it completely . Then get them out of determining restarts and scrum feeds etc. Then bring in two Captains challenges per team , per game only to be used in try scoring situations . One challenge lost every time a Captain loses a decision. Then everyone learns to live with the fact that Refs make wrong calls for everything else. I love this game so much but sometimes we make something so simple so complicated.
Sleiman Azizi
Roar Guru
Err...