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Graham Annesley has angrily refuted claims that the NRL’s lower-ranked clubs are treated poorly by referees and never get the rub of the green.
Officiating has been back in the spotlight from round one this year, when Gold Coast coach Justin Holbrook claimed his side did not get the favourable calls big clubs did.
North Queensland counterpart Todd Payten also made the same claims after his team’s round-five loss to the Sydney Roosters, amid regular debate from former players in media.
But in an unprompted eight-and-a-half minute monologue at Tuesday’s weekly media briefing, Annesley made clear there was no proof of bias from NRL officials. Instead, he argued poorly performing teams were often penalised more than opponents and at times deliberately slowed both the game and ruck.
“The teams at the top end of the ladder … they control the ball. They spend long periods of time in possession,” the NRL head of football said.
“The teams at the other end of the ladder, they’re spending much more time defending. You’re much more likely to concede offences when you’re defending. You’ll be offside more, you’ll be committing offences in the ruck. You’ll frankly be trying to slow the ruck down.
“We all know that that’s a tactic in our game to try and slow the good sides down.
“So these things do become a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy.”
Annesley also argued officials did not have time to consider matters like penalty counts or ladder position when making rulings, and that there was never a pre-conceived bias.
“I just wanted to be very clear here: the process that the match officials go through … in making any decision is based entirely on what they see,” Annesley said.
Meanwhile ,Annesley defended a decision not to hand Newcastle a crucial late penalty for offside in their loss to St George Illawarra from the penultimate kick-off, claiming it was line-ball call.
But he did state there had been bunker inconsistencies in the Roosters’ win over the Warriors.
Annesley was unimpressed the Roosters were handed a ruck penalty late in the game while the Warriors were denied one for a similar infringement earlier.
Both decisions were made by the bunker after a captain’s challenge when knock-ons were called on-field.
Luke Keary says he’s never seen an NRL playmaker as gifted and as confident as Sam Walker, describing the five-eighth’s natural instinct to attack without fear as an exceptional quality.
Walker’s off-the-cuff style is born and bred because his father Ben and uncle Shane once coached Queensland Cup side Ipswich with a focus on attacking with freedom and taking risks.
The Sydney Roosters have four wins to start the season with Keary adjusting to the shift to halfback to accommodate Walker at five-eighth.
Walker is 19 years old but the UK-born playmaker demonstrated his wares in the Roosters’ gritty win over the Warriors on Sunday when he kicked five goals, scored a try and picked up all three Dally M points.
Keary likened Walker to a young Johnathan Thurston and said he relishes playing with the teenager.
“I haven’t played with a half with (his) skillset and talent,” Keary said.
“I think he’s been blessed with the family he’s grown up in; around his dad and uncle who coached that Ipswich team, which we all know had a different style of footy.
“He’s grown up around that environment where he’s been able to express himself and play free-flowing football.
“The mindset he goes in with is definitely rare.”
While the pair’s combination is still growing, Keary said he admired Walker’s ability to take a risk and brush himself off if it didn’t come to fruition.
“You want a kid with confidence like that,” Keary said. “You don’t want to go the other way where you’re trying to instil confidence in him.
“He’s going to take the game (on) and you’ve seen that in big moments.
“My job is to kind of help control the team a little bit and let him do his thing when he’s feeling it and he’s on.”
Keary and Walker will face St George Illawarra on Monday in the club’s traditional Anzac Day game and the Roosters halfback rated the contest as “the biggest club game of the year”.
(Photo by Robert Cianflone/Getty Images)
Cameron Munster’s manager Braith Anasta believes the Storm have only got themselves to blame for the ongoing speculation around the star five-eighth by prioritising the re-signing of three other players ahead of him.
Munster, who is not off contract until the end of next year, recently knocked back an extension offer from Melbourne who finalised upgraded deals for teammates Harry Grant, Jahrome Hughes and Xavier Coates.
With speculation mounting that several clubs, including Newcastle, North Queensland, the Roosters and Gold Coast, are likely to be interested in Munster along with the Dolphins expansion side, Anasta denied on NRL 360 that he had been shopping his client around.
He said Munster’s form on the field was driving up his value and he did not need to put any feelers out to prospective clubs. Munster is understood to have rejected an offer from the Storm around $750,000 a year because other teams would stump up seven figures each season for his services.
“He’s not being shopped around. Have you watched him play the last seven weeks? You don’t need to go and chase [clubs],” Anasta said.
“We’ve got the Dolpins involved, which is a new club, a new franchise. The rules are the rules, whether it’s Cameron Munster or anyone for that matter in the competition you can talk to clubs you just can’t negotiate [a contract].
“Now the problem here is the Melbourne Storm wanted to re-sign the four players.
“They said they want to extend and upgrade the other three but extend and lower Cameron’s wage for the next couple of years so they’ve made that public and they’ve put that out there so we, knowing Cameron’s in the best state mentally and physically, knew he’d play really well this season, we said no.
“What that’s done is brought attention now more to Cameron’s performances on the field from clubs and it’s the Melbourne Storm who have actually put that attention on him.”
Munster tore the Sharks to shreds in a dominant performance to lead the Storm to a 34-18 victory on Saturday night. He will be one of the first players picked for Queensland in this year’s State of Origin series and is likely to be the Kangaroos’ five-eighth for Australia’s end-of-season World Cup campaign.
(Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)
Sea Eagles owner Scott Penn wants next year’s proposed “round zero” game in the US to become an annual part of the NRL calendar.
The ARL Commission is considering a plan to stage a match in Los Angeles next year a week before the rest of Round 1 kicks off.
Manly and South Sydney, given their ties to Hollywood stars Hugh Jackman and Russell Crowe, are the likely teams to take part in the match if it goes ahead.
The historic fixture would be played a week before the rest of the first round so that the two teams would have sufficient time to return to Australia and acclimatise before their next match.
“There’s huge interest in NRL over here in the US. Rugby league continues to grow and expand over here,” Penn told the Sydney Morning Herald.
“Anyone I show it to over here they think, ‘Wow, that’s amazing. They don’t wear pads and helmets’ – it’s really the last bastion of gladiatorial sports.”
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