NRL admits Manly were dudded by wrong call

It looked like it was in line to me and you could see the line on the ground and the defenders moving toward him. The camera from the opposite touchline would not have seen a thing as the player was facing away from it. The touch judge did not see the pass until it was floating forward from the passer's momentum as his view was blocked by the Manly winger and the referees boss confirmed the touch judge was in error. It was a simple matter of the camera being above players who were blocking the touch judge's view. The video camera picked up what the ref and TJ could not see and that is why they didn't call it a forward pass as they didn't see it. Using the video camera makes sense in such a cases and it is not a ludicrous idea.

The video camera was not in line, it was about 10-15 degrees off which distorted what people saw. As Annesley mentioned yesterday, there was another camera angle from the opposite touchline which showed the pass was forward. Which one do you believe? Of course there hasn’t been any further articles about Saturday night’s controversal call, Annesley’s comments yesterday or why video referees adjudicating on forward passes is a ludicrious idea and should never happen. But what do you expect from modern journalists.

The video camera was in line with the play and it was obvious the ball was passed backwards and floated forward due to momentum. The touch judge's view was blocked by the Parramatta winger so he didn't see it and made his decision based on the ball's momentum. That was an error as the referees boss correctly pointed out. The referees boss is doing his job and I'm sure the TJ will be back but his replacement will get their chance.

I don't know if they had used their challenge but it would have won the game.

The pass wasn't forward but the TJ missed the pass being thrown and saw it float forward due to the momentum of the ball passer. The TJ knows the rules so he must've been unsighted. I heard the Parra half laughing about it after the game and he mentioned the calls that went against Parra but I don't remember them. What were they?

What I saw was the left winger moving in towards the ball carrier. When he saw the pass thrown he turned but the Sea Eagle had bolted. He was sucked in and out of position and probably blocking the TJ's view so he did save a try.

Take a Panadol and have a lie down, crikey. Why do you think that touchie isn't complaining? He knows where his bread is buttered. There's no doubt he loved having his call dumped on by his boss. And what's with the personal attacks? What are you on about thinking we're "smarter than the blokes in charge"? This is an opinion site, remember? If it differs from yours, try to have the maturity to handle it with some dignity instead of letting fly like a 6 year old. Time to grow up bud.

Everyone saw the pass but not many have mentioned the fact that Sean Lane pulls up once the whistle is blown or he would of put Garrick over the side line. People see what they want to see.

Another factor is that Tom was running on an angle towards the touch line making his hand movements sideways and a bit forward on release. The collision stopping him dead, almost as the ball leaves his hand with the line right there probably are all factors at speed which affect the call. Jimmmy you think Johnson was offside in the Holmes disaster pass? I was hoping they captain challenged it as Johnson picked up the loose ball. He was 2m offside when the ball was played on my TV. It was a massive turning point. The ref was quick to penalise Holmes for offside (proven incorrect). Maybe a few Sharks were dictating a few calls in the ref’s ear Cameron style?

I don’t know. Hopefully the touch judge isn’t copping too badly given how close a call it was and the fact that it’s a only a game.

Because common sense options are not being undertaken & the bunker is not ruling on easy decisions, an incorrect match result has eventuated. Now fans are complaining about politics. Should Annesley have publicly admitted that the match official made an incorrect decision? Let common sense prevail & let the bunker confirm or overrule try scoring events when practical.

So what’s Newton’s protractor say? Was the pass delivered at 90 degrees from sideline? Was Tom exactly running perfectly parallel to the sideline or angling towards the sideline?This would increase the degree of angle and decreases the degree of forward momentum which in turn means his hands may actually be pushing the pass more forward out of his hands than it would if he was running straight. Holy crap let’s get an engineer and lawyer in to check the reading of the rules (backwards out of the hands) with a couple of NRL ref’s and the big V’lands to sought it out maybe. What’s best for the game come back next week and replay the final seconds after it’s ticked off with the commentary team?

Yeah, I agree The certainty with which Annesley can state Turbo’s pass was ok and burn the official shows that officials can rule on passes via video The only word of caution is that they used to back in the day but stopped because fans and media complained so hard about the results

Not much point discussing the maths with you if you don't understand it. Let me make it simple for you. Now pay attention. Think of a player running at 30km/hr or about 8.5m a second and he throws a flat pass or even a pass thats a degree or two backwards. For every second the ball is in the air it maintains that 8.5m/s forward velocity. The forward movement of the ball will be balanced, more or less, against the lateral speed of the pass, the angle of the pass, and the time in the air. Its like chucking a cricket ball straight sideways of the window of a car doing 100km/hr. If the ball is in the air for only a second it will land about 28m in front of the point it was thrown. Quite a distance. If you don't understand the basic physics then your opinion is irrelevant. If you were to eliminate all passes that have been caught in front of the passer then thousands of past passes would not pass muster despite leaving the hands backwards. I think that the NRL needs to film an experiment using a wheeled robot travelling down a footy field, firing a long ball a couple of degrees backwards of square. This would show a simple lesson in forward velocity.

Oh yeah it was a really tough call for the official to make; a legit 50/50 to the naked eye and at pace. At the end of the day, the Sea Eagles were out played for 60 odd minutes and probably didn’t really deserve to be so close. It’s a shame that the focus is on that 2 secs of play instead of the other 79:58 that represented a hell of a contest.

Is it a Rugby League rule degree or a physics degree you want from the Official? Seriously the decision was made at speed in the moment and Tom was stopped by a defender behind where the ball was caught which mean the lines man saw it as travelling forward. Tom is actually stopped dead in his tracks just as he lets it go which means to the naked eye the “Train may have been stopped at the station” at point of release. The bunker can’t over rule so it’s the officials view that is called. Like I said you can’t say he passed it back but maybe just side ways (remembering the rule actually state backwards from the hand)or a fraction back or 0.0001 degree forward as Eels fans could argue. It’s a crap call for Annesley to call out in a press release at the end of a game IMO.

Baz, so many things can be difficult to rule on & we are never all going to be 100% satisfied but I reckon the NRL's priority should be to rid the game of obvious errors like the Tommy Turbot "forward pass" Sat night. The NRL have previously stated they won’t allow the bunker to use the video replay on forward passes due to not having enough resources to properly adjudicate. So, I ask you all, how many times has the video ref been asked to adjudicate on a try scorer grounding the ball under a pack of 4 players & no one has any vision of what actually occurred? 100s of times. So, do we give up? No, the common sense approach is where we have clear vision in try scoring situations use it. When we don't have clear vision, it goes back to ref’s call.

The rule has always been if it comes backwards out of the hands it's a legitimate pass. This article is not about changing that rule. Looking at the replay, the pass clearly legitimate. So, what would have Annesley do? a) Insult all our intelligence & tell the NRL world that it was in fact a forward pass? b) Say nothing & If queried by the media, plead the fifth amendment. He hasn’t called the match official a moron, he quite promptly announced that it was an incorrect decision. In real-time sport we accept there are going to be mistakes & use replays when & if they are available to assist match officials. I backed Parramatta on Saturday, so I’m glad they don’t use common sense & just look at the replay. Then we wouldn’t be having this conversation.

Pass was forward and the better team won despite all the calls that went against Parra.

Love it Chris!