Senior referee Grant Atkins and his touch judges have paid the price for their error in allowing Newcastle to score off the eighth tackle at a crucial stage of Sunday’s win over the Rabbitohs.
Atkins and fellow officials Phil Henderson and Dave Munro have been dropped from Round 26 on-field duties with Atkins demoted to bunker official for three matches.
Head of football Graham Annesley conceded the match officials erred in allowing a Newcastle set to run for eight tackles midway through the 29-10 defeat of the Rabbitohs.
The Knights had been due a seven-tackle set after Souths five-eighth Cody Walker kicked the ball dead.
Referee Grant Atkins talks to Tyson Frizell of the Knights and Cameron Murray of the Rabbitohs. (Photo by Scott Gardiner/Getty Images)
But the referees lost count after some chaotic goal-line defence that led to two Newcastle play-the-balls in quick succession from much the same spot on the field, before Daniel Saifiti scored on the eighth tackle of the set.
“There’s no excuse for it, it’s a straight miss by the referees,” Annesley said.
Annesley, however, backed the decision to award the Knights a later try after the ball ricocheted into Atkins.
The shot constituted a mutual infringement, not the fault of either team. Such infringements are policed at the referee’s discretion.
Atkins determined Adam Clune would still have scored the subsequent try had the ball’s path not been impeded, given he and Knights hooker Phoenix Crossland were closer to the ball than any Souths player.
Tigers chair threatens podcasters with legal action
Wests Tigers chair Lee Hagipantelis is at loggerheads with a fans podcast after they made claims about how he tried to lure Mitchell Moses back to the club from Parramatta.
He has threatened legal action against the WestsLife podcast after co-hosts Rob Bechara and Josh Barnett ridiculed his efforts to sign Moses earlier this year when the star halfback was weighing up lucrative offers from the Eels and Tigers.
“I should drop a bombshell on you guys,” Bechara said on the podcast.
“It’s actually quite embarrassing for Hagipantelis but rather funny. When things were turning sour with Mitchell Moses, he was so desperate to get Mitchell Moses to the club that he actually told Mitchell Moses that if he signs with the Wests Tigers he will pick him up every day in his Ferrari and drive him to Concord.”
Barnett responded with: “Is he 16 years old? That’s actually really creepy,” he said. “Did he have a Chupa Chup in his hand for him as well? I mean, Jesus Christ.”
Hagipantelis has denied ever making contact with Moses during the negotiations and demanded an apology.
“Podcasters are perfectly entitled to hold an opinion or criticise the club, myself or [chief executive] Justin Pascoe,” Hagipantelis told the Sydney Morning Herald.
“That is not an issue. However, if my character and reputation are defamed in a public setting, then there are legal consequences. I note this has been acknowledged by the gentleman in question given they have unreservedly apologised.”
The podcasters issued an apology via their Facebook page and also said sorry on their most recent episode.
Forty Twenty
Roar Rookie
It's good to see one of these keyboard critics pulled into line. The constant defaming of people by these clowns was always going to be dealt with at some stage. The constant defence that they are just expressing an opinion and therefore that makes everything they say O.K has always been laughable. As for the 8th tackle try , all you have to do is claim that these mistakes don't really matter because it's very rare that they cost teams a victory. I'd be happy to accept any ref errors going Manly's way when we are up by 18 because I've seen us get run down with big leads in recent years. I won't bother claiming it didn't effect the result because I don't know.
steveng
Roar Rookie
Grant Atkins didn't start off well on Sunday right from the get-go, he gave the Knights a penalty when he penalised the Bunnies in the 4th min for that nonsense 2nd effort into touch call. Which is nothing new from Grant Atkins against the Bunnies, we get that from Grant whenever he referees our games all the time. How can the NRL award this clown a bunker adjudicating job, when he is 100% worse there also. Must be that at the NRL you don't demote failure but promote it, as no wonder they are like they are :laughing: Grant Atkins and the other two clowns, Phil Henderson and Dave Munro should be having a few weeks off and panelised just like Latrell is and all the NRL players that get suspended for doing the wrong thing. But if that was the case, there would be no refs to run the NRL comp with what is going on these days.
Nathan Absalom
Roar Guru
The specific words are that the play is "irregularly affected". Dunno what that means so I can cop either decision as correct. However, the process was handled very badly by the ref, who gave a try and refused to explain his reasoning to the players. The ref simply shouldn't be ruling whether they themselves affected play, it should be ruled by touchies or bunker. Instead players perceive that the ref is making a decision for the benefit of the ref, not the game. Yes, it's a very rare situation but it's how a ref can lose control of a game and they should take the opportunity to tighten that up a bit rather than hope it doesn't repeat.
Phil
Roar Rookie
Human error has been part of RL since 1908 and will keep recurring well into the future. We’ve all had our gripes about dud ref decisions but we get over them. However when there is a high tech piece of equipment deployed to reduce simple errors if not eradicate them, it takes a little more getting over. Maybe bunker officials are not high tech enough to handle the job. Good to see action taken on the offending officials.
farkurnell
Roar Rookie
Well you learn something new every day.Here I’ve always been thinking a ball is dead as soon as it hits the Ref.However GA has just added another level of inconsistency , for the Refs to adjudicate on that ball touching them will influence the subsequent play.
up in the north
Roar Rookie
So the penalty for incompetence in not being able to count to 8 is to be given a more demanding role in the bunker, what could possibly go wrong with that.
andrew
Roar Rookie
So the match officials cop the penalty because it was Souths that were hard done by. The match officials when Saints got the rough end of the pineapple against Souths, surprise surprise, nothing's done. Consistency, something the NRL wouldn't have a clue about. Probably wouldn't even know what the word meant.
Ian_
Roar Rookie
It amuses me that one embarrassing error gets a referee the axe for a week, but being consistently crap doesn't get them demoted.
jimmmy
Roar Rookie
The problem with the system is that since the Cowboys were dudded in that final against the Sharks with a seventh tackle the NRL has religiously made sure all the Ref’s can count to 7. But it was never upgraded to 8 with the seven tackle sets. All match officials need to be re-tested to make sure they are of at least an eight count standard,