The iconic Sydney Cricket Ground has hosted some of the game’s greatest moments and players throughout its long and storied history – from the all-conquering St George Dragons of the 1950s and 1960s, the once-mighty touring British Lions and Immortals like Gasnier, Messenger and Churchill.
Nobody will want to remember what happened on Thursday night between the Sydney Roosters and the Manly Sea Eagles in what ended up becoming an atrocious display of what is meant to be ‘the greatest game of all’.
It was painful to watch. We weren’t expecting a classic from two teams on the periphery of the top eight and outside chances of playing September footy.
But referee Ashley Klein and the bunker didn’t do us any favours, either.
The NRL should refund every single one of the 12,197 punters that showed up. Trust in officials, whether on the field or upstairs, is at an all-time low.
(Photo by Matt King/Getty Images)
Fans that sucked it up and actually got through the entire 80 minutes were “treated” to a whopping 21 penalties and an incredible 13 set restarts.
With just 20 minutes to play and the Eagles down 22-2, Klein sent Manly prop Toafofoa Sipley to the sin bin for holding down in the ruck. This was a penalty given away with the Roosters coming out of their own end.
Despite most of the penalties at this point, given by Klein, going against the Roosters, he sent a Manly player for 10 minutes.
Just when you thought it was safe to peel away a finger from across your face and take a peek – Klein sent Nathan Brown off for a fairly innocuous high tackle on Manly’s Ben Trbojevic, stating that the Roosters forward “left the ground” to make contact with the young Sea Eagle. A quick replay showed the Roosters veteran’s boots firmly entrenched on the SCG turf.
“You don’t want to see it, I don’t think it’s great for Ben but there’s so much worse than that in the game and that gets sent off?” the usually cautious Roosters coach Trent Robinson said. “Guys have been heavily concussed from high tackles and all of that, nothing happened there tonight and he gets sent from the field.”
An equally frustrated Anthony Seibold took the officials to task for Sipley’s binning.
“Our sixth penalty of the night was a yardage penalty on Tof Sipley and he gets sin binned,” Seibold began. “I understand the frustration with the amount but at that stage the Roosters had given away ten and we’d given five.
“I wasn’t sure where that came from.”
This is meant to be one of the best referees we have – a veteran of 14 State of Origin matches and 23 finals appearances. Combine Klein’s 23 playoff games with Gerard Sutton’s 36 and the pair share a huge 59 finals combined.
Now compare that to the glory years of the 1990s and 2000s.
A golden age, full of top-flight whistle blowers, all jostling for the tag as number one referee and while it was mostly always Billy Harrigan’s crown, there were plenty of others nipping on his heels.
From the bearded Greg McCallum to Tim Mander. Eddie Ward, Steve Clark or Paul Simpkins, anyone? What about David Manson? Sean Hampstead, Tony Archer or the most tanned bloke this side of Spain – Shayne Hayne!
If you take away Harrigan’s 45 finals caps – the nine other referees amassed 140 finals at an average of 15.5.
(Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)
Eight less than Klein and 21 behind Sutton who are both active in the NRL and still going strong.
Does anyone know what Matt Cecchin is up to these days?
The fact is, we had many more top-line referees in the past held to much higher account than in 2023 and they didn’t have their hands held by dozens of cameras and “big brother” over-analysing every play and barking into their ear pieces incessantly.
We all deserve better.
Heyou
Roar Rookie
Just because you express a different opinion to mine doesn’t mean I hate you or disregard your opinion as worthless. I’ve got no time for hate. Your ‘breed’ is not my concern - one human to another.
Bernie
Roar Rookie
hard not to look ahead though - three games in a row at home, all on a Sunday, that makes preparation a lot easier. good to see a team turn themselves around & enjoy their footy.
Cadfael
Roar Guru
Sorry but in the "golden age", these refs refereed the games not managed them. Maybe if the refs refereed as per the laws of the game penalties, six agains, etc would reduce.
elvis
Roar Rookie
No, a pass is a pass if it bounces. You are completely wrong. No one is confused, you just don't know the rules. In touch football I don't think you can bounce it. Neither in Gridiron. Netball you can bounce it.
elvis
Roar Rookie
Gutho throws it backwards, Moses toes it through and scores. It's a try without even a shadow of a doubt. Round 21 I think.
elvis
Roar Rookie
This had me wondering what you were talking about so I went and watched the highlights. This has been a try every day since 1908. The passer threw the ball backwards, another player kicked it through. Happens every few matches. What I can't understand is the brain fade you are having, surely you have been watching long enough to have seen this many many times. One famous incident is in SOO around 2000 where John Doyle got a pass into the legs and kneed it through and was a try.
Nick
Roar Rookie
Agreed. But Harrigan these days would not be given the protection from HQ (or the Channel 9 punditry team) to be the disciplinarian. Nor from some of the fans.
The Barry
Roar Guru
100%
The Barry
Roar Guru
Hahah… yep It’s the same with conspiracy theorists - who I think might often be one and the same Back in the day, they’d be in the corner of the pub muttering about referee stitch ups and moon landings and be told to STFU Now the internet puts them in touch with enough like minded nut jobs to feed their paranoia instead of shutting it down… :laughing: :laughing: :laughing:
The Barry
Roar Guru
So the quality of the game was terrible, the performances from both teams was sub par. Execution was off. Ball handling and defence was poor But the penalties and restarts were the #refsfault Spare me Rather than these moaning articles… take us through the refs decisions and tell us which ones were wrong. Which were the ones he had no right to blowing Both teams were pushing the limit. I think he could have blown more penalties There was lots of things that caused that game to be a dud… the ref was well down the list As for the Brown tackle. He did leave his feet. There’s a still shot that shows his tip toes still in contact with the ground as he makes contact with his shoulder straight into Burbo’s head, but he was on his way up Seems like modern pundits and fans are incapable of analysing and discussing rugby league without putting it all on the ref The Roar is pretty good compared to social media, but even here - where we get brilliant post game analysis articles from guys like MMW, ever article descends into “But the ref… but the ref… but the ref…” Newsflash, refs aren’t the real problem here
The Barry
Roar Guru
Yep… Harrigan built his career on being a stickler for the rules and a tough ref. It was only later in his career when he had built his reputation because players knew he would ping them, that he was able to put the whistle down a little As a result we got some brilliant free flowing big games with only a couple of penalties The NRL mistakenly believed that low penalty counts were the secret to good games, ignoring the fact it had taken Harrigan 10 years to get to that point. So skinny little nervous refs were sent onto the field for their first games and told not to blow penalties and it’s created a mess https://www.theroar.com.au/2021/06/25/its-all-bill-harrigans-fault/
Choppy Zezers
Roar Rookie
Bernie, the Knights -Dragons game was widely expected to be spoon bowl. Look as a knights fan we expect nothing so we dont get disappointed. But five on the bounce and in the top 8 with the dogs at home next week. Look the team has had some recent success but we aren't getting too ahead of ourselves. We are taking it one game at a time. The dogs have some quality players and we expect them to turn up ready to play.
criag
Roar Rookie
You said it: 'Subjective'! Klein always somehow seems to find a lot of penalties to give against the Roosters. One against JWH when the Manly player attempted to play the ball when not on his feet, and the other against Hutchison were just laughable!
Muzz Manyana
Roar Rookie
It appears that our standards are very different and that you’re comfortable with mediocrity. If it was my full time occupation and I was on $350k a year I’d make sure my performance was up to scratch.
Nick
Roar Rookie
And yet, here you are thinking you can still do better from the couch.
Tim Carter
Roar Pro
You can't just make up your own rules and then be mad that officials haven't already started following them. There is no stipulation that a pass cannot touch the ground. Would you ban grubber kicks while you were at it? After all, they touch the ground before being regathered.
Muzz Manyana
Roar Rookie
Shoosh? lol...Mate it's an opinion site! My point being that Brown wasn't offside so there should be no issue with him racing up and putting pressure on the opposition. Klein is turning most of his games these days into a dogs breakfast! He's the new Hollywood Harrigan that thinks he's a far king superstar. :laughing:
Heyou
Roar Rookie
Yep it’s madness
Heyou
Roar Rookie
Easily googled and downloaded. But not my point. Experts who know the game, write about the game in newspapers and on line and comment on the game – on Fox/Kayo/ Nine, vodcasts, podcasts, radio stations, YouTube etc are well versed in these continually updated rules and laws of the NRL. They discuss and debate and speak against and for these adjudication decisions endlessly, with intelligence for the most part and with sincere passion for their interpretations. We expect game officials to rule on all of these rules and laws within every game. The person with a whistle and ear buds to the bunker official, and a massive tome rolling around in said officials heads and running up and down and across and backwards, sweat pouring, brain and eyes trying to make sense of it all and make the correct decisions…Poor officials who cannot escape the inconsistencies of their rulings. Spec savers won’t help them and I don’t know what will. I can’t rest my case. But I’ll cease and desist… for now
Bernie
Roar Rookie
Chop, you've been suspiciously quiet on your Knights galloping surge towards the finals. getting nervous? a quick look at the draw sees the mighty Dragons up against the GoodKnights in the last round. hmmm, wouldn't it be engrossing if Newie needed a win to make the eight .... but those pesky Saints were out to thwart them.