Ricky Stuart wants the NRL bunker to be stripped right back to only rule on contentious try decisions after crying foul over Matt Lodge taking a dive last week in the Warriors’ narrow win over Canberra.
Stuart said on Thursday that the bunker’s interference cost his team dearly and that the game would be better off without the video officials constantly getting involved.
Blues coach Brad Fittler and Immortal halfback Andrew Johns have also slammed the bunker for missing Lodge’s elbow against Canberra and then allowing the Warriors prop to get a penalty for an incident when he later admitted to faking being hurt.
The Warriors kicked a crucial late penalty goal to help get the game into extra time in what turned out to be a one-point win over the Raiders when Lodge lay down after a glancing blow from a Corey Horsburgh tackle.
“It’s hard to get over those losses when it’s taken away from you the way it was with some really poor bunker decisions, the effort’s there from the players,” Stuart said as he finalised preparations for Friday night’s home clash against Canterbury.
“I believe the bunker is damaging our game – I don’t believe we need the bunker because they can’t get it right.
(Photo by Chris Hyde/Getty Images)
“I really don’t understand how we can penalise Corey Horsburgh on that shot on Lodge where he’s even come out and said that he faked it.
“We all knew he faked it, everybody at the ground knew he faked it and yet we have a bunker doctor who wants to keep contributing into a game and yet he lay on the ground for a number of seconds after a so-called head shot and the bunker doctor didn’t even want to have any HIA protocol involved with it.
“I really believe the bunker is getting it so wrong we need to only have the bunker be involved in contentious tries.
“And even where we’ve got the referee coming back now and the goal-kicker has to wait and the bunker gets an extra 30 or 40 seconds to then want to review it, it’s just damaging the fabric and the way we want the game to be viewed.
“It’s annoying and it makes it more annoying when you lose games from it and the situation where we are where we need as many two points as we possibly can to have it taken away from us like that through a decision which I don’t know how he got wrong is really disappointing.”
Canberra have dropped to 14th place with a 2-6 record after last weekend’s loss and their hopes of returning to the finals this season are quickly fading away.
Stuart also took aim at the NRL judiciary Lodge raising his forearm while in possession and clocking Corey Harawira-Naera but avoiding suspension.
Fittler and Johns, on their Wide World of Sports podcast, also called on the NRL to scale back the bunker’s involvement.
“This is all on the bunker. The bunker’s the same one that allowed the earlier incident when he raised his arm which I thought was more than a penalty,” Fittler said on Freddy & The Eighth.
“If I’m in the bunker there’s just no way in the world in the name of gamesmanship am I ever getting that a penalty, it’s just not happening. It’s the bunker’s fault,” he added in reference to the Horsburgh tackle.
Andrew Johns added: “It is the over-influence of the bunker on the game. The referee’s out there, the touch judges are at the game, the bunker’s hundreds and hundreds of kilometres away, let the officials feel when they’re out there. Everyone could see it wasn’t a penalty, everyone in the crowd.”
Stuart said he had raised his concerns with NRL head of football Graham Annesley and referees’ boss Jared Maxwell. Bunker official Steve Chiddy was dropped for this weekend’s round after recommending the penalty to Lodge.
Stuart said skill level rather than effort was hurting his side as they try to break their form slump against the Bulldogs.
“It’s frustrating times and last weekend didn’t help that,” he said.
“The effort is there from the players … we’ve got to polish up a few parts of our game but you can’t do that if you haven’t got effort.
“It made it very hard for me as a coach last week to see how much it hurt all of us … it’s hard to get over those losses when it’s taken away from you the way it was with some really poor bunker decisions.”
With Friday’s Canberra’s ‘Forever Green’ match, where past players and coaches are invited back to the club, Stuart called on his players to take inspiration from how the club had battled through tough periods before.
“We’re going through some hard times at the moment and you remember those hard times … we support our mates and the camaraderie among us will pull us out of tough times, that’s what we’re banking on,” he said.
“Whether it’s tomorrow night or the week after, it’s just a matter of sticking together and working hard towards what we need to do.”
blahblah
Guest
Agree completely with Ricky Stuart. The Bunker has become an absolute blight on the game. What people thought was going to be black and white technology has added incomprehensible layers of subjective grey to the rules. Not to mention its added function as a "spectacle killer". It adds absolutely nothing to the enjoyment of the game. If we must have it, for god's sake, we need to seriously limit its scope. I propose there should be an advantage applied to the attacking when assessing tries. If a team is good enough to put together a play that gets them over the line then the Bunker has no right to rob them of 4 points by finding some microscopic infraction played at super slow motion 10 times over. Give me a break.
Vivalasvegan
Roar Rookie
You have a point with the obstructions. When a slavish fixation on a flawed rule trumps logic and game feel the sport is in trouble. Let's not forget that the players are 100kg+, running at pace, under fatigue... brushing the shoulder of a defender, four out from the line break, 25 metres away, murders the spectacle and the physicality of the game.
Vivalasvegan
Roar Rookie
I enjoy the pressers more than the game too sometimes. It's a guilty pleasure tbh. Agree it has to be reviewed normal speed, should have a limited amount of views, should be the ref who makes decision, on field, watching the big screen with us all. Seems to work better in the SL to me. Less shocking decisions. Generally agreed that the touchies are almost pointless in the modern game. Used to be a key role, running on, flag lifted, assisting the ref's. They are now terrible.
DP Schaefer
Roar Rookie
:shocked:
Choppy Zezers
Roar Rookie
And it was the Raiders - Warriors. They are both rubbish. Both deserved to lose and maybe it was fates way of punishing Ricky? If so, have a high five Fate
Choppy Zezers
Roar Rookie
I'm always trying to overcome worms
jimmmy
Roar Rookie
I mind too when they ' get it right' DP. This bs obsession withgetting it right is going to kill us. Refs mistake ? Whinge , then get on with it.
jimmmy
Roar Rookie
Like all bureaucracies the bunker has suffered from inexorable mission creep. The try review I can live with ( barely ) but the rulings on foul play, the Captains challenge and most egregious of all ' the random insertion ' of the bunker nto general play rulings does my head in. Let's go back to just the try review, nothing else . Bunkers mike switched off until a try is scored. Any missed foul play can be picked up Monday morning.
Geoff from Bruce Stadium
Roar Rookie
I think Ricky's point is the bunker's role should just be restricted to adjudicating on tries and not get involved in on field decisions like strips or the legality of tackles. A lot of the time they get the strips right but that Lodge penalty was a shocker - particularly when they had ample opportunity to review slow motion replays. If the bunker hadn't got involved in that one there would have been no penalty and Lodge would have had to play the ball.
DP Schaefer
Roar Rookie
Actually, I mind.. I mind when they 'get it right' because it usually is correcting just a slight and human error that we could have lived with, 'being right' technically is often in defiance of common sense (like some of the no-try-due-to-obstruction rulings), doesn't even enhance the game, doesn't add to the spectacle and just gives them justification for their existence. "oh, we got that right".. even though we don't look at obvious forward passes at all, dropped balls and knock-ons in the previous play, and our other 20 decisions this weekend were dodgy. It was bought in to 'stop the howler' not its mico-analysing the non-howler while creating a forest of 'howlers' itself. It has had its day and must be dumped.
DP Schaefer
Roar Rookie
:laughing: 40/20 with a chair :laughing: :laughing:
DP Schaefer
Roar Rookie
#dumpthebunker
DP Schaefer
Roar Rookie
bug battles can quite compelling...
DP Schaefer
Roar Rookie
Can't think of a game where one bloke has been so beneficial for the opposition. All the Warrior tries came on the back of his errors or just the first 2??
DP Schaefer
Roar Rookie
Easy answer, when negotiating the broadcasting rights you simply sit down, agree - as any sane person should - that micro slow-mo analysis of decisions isn't good for the game and don't have it. When the rules were set up they actually were designed - and I believe this still stands - the in the referees opinion such and such happened. So the ref acts on what he saw in real speed, that is how it is analysed. Done.
Robbin Banks
Guest
I haven't watched one game this year and possibly won't watch one . I used watch rugby league for enjoyment , but the bunker has taken the fun out of the game and turned it ( along with the advertising) into a painful and tedious experience. RIP rugby league.
WithTheDawn
Roar Rookie
Oh sure, I think whichever team won that was lucky, it was horrible from both teams. I just find it frustrating that the one time the Warriors get a vaguely beneficial call no one can move on from it. Like I said, there were a couple worse than this that went against the Warriors in this game, and plenty of other occurrences throughout the season. Not to mention in the rest of the comp, littered with horrible bunker calls, incorrect rulings etc. I mean we are onto the next round and there are still articles about it. Just weird more than anything.
Geoff from Bruce Stadium
Roar Rookie
Lets face it you got lucky last weekend - take it as the Warriors rarely get the rub of the green - SJ almost looked a bit embarrassed after he kicked the winning field goal
Geoff from Bruce Stadium
Roar Rookie
No one minds when the bunker gets involved and gets it right - but the Lodge penalty was an absolute howler
Geoff from Bruce Stadium
Roar Rookie
The bunker decision didn't help - if no penalty is given we probably hold on for an ugly win