What you just described is not a sin bin offense – if that is all that happened, it is the ref who should be sanctioned.

Anyone know why Radley as sent to the sin bin, didn’t look like anything happened and the ref didn’t explain what he had done? If was really strange from the ref.

Parra actually got the lion share of ref calls, thank god for the captains challenge to at least correct some of the refs crazy calls in favour of Parra.
What is unfair is the scheduling of games that Parra has received for the start of the season – that is brutal.

What make this one at the absolute worst end of high tackles is that Tedesco didn’t even have the ball, there was no purpose in making the tackle other than to make a late hit of a player who had caught the tackler in no mans land in defense. The tackler chose to shoulder charge Tedesco in the head knowing full well that he was hitting a player without the ball.

Of all the tackle the NRL should be rubbing out of the game, it is that one – late, high, easy to pull out, shoulder charge, no attempt for a proper tackle, direct contact with the head, with force.
It was a straight red under any interpretation or history of the game.
I hate red cards ruining a game but how that wasn’t a red doesn’t make sense.
It should be 10 weeks out to stop players repeating it, but will probably be 3 weeks.

Sorry, but I can’t really agree with anything you say.

“Firstly, the catcher always knows if they’ve taken the catch cleanly or not.” – I’ve played lots of cricket, you launch for a catch at full stretch, it smashes your fingers but in reality you have no real idea whether you caught it completely cleanly.

“In the above example Smith glibly alludes to a bit of doubt which is his dithering way of admitting he didn’t take it cleanly.” – Of all the catches this was the closest to a clean catch. He actually catches the ball well above the grass initially, and then the velocity of the ball bends his wrist so his finger touch the ground but at least two finger are completely under the ball. In the Labuschagne one, at best, a single finger got sandwiched between the ball and the ground but most probably the ball bounced off the ground while making some contact with a finger also on the ground.

The problem is there is no exaggeration, it sounds like exaggeration because the decision was so ridiculous. In forty years of watching rugby I’ve never seen a ref make that decision – that’s not exaggeration, that is fact. What I stated above is just fact – I can’t help you don’t like it.
In terms of Swain, it was a nasty incident and could of been red but based on similar incidents yellow was far more likely – yellow was hardly a controversial decision.

I never mentioned the result, I’m talking about the refereeing decision.
The refereeing decision was completely insane. There is no justification for it. It was at complete odds to 150 years of refereeing and the other 79 minutes of the same game.

So the New Zealand players can take 60 seconds+ to kick for touch but the Australian players must kick within 39 seconds or be penalised – that sounds like fair refereeing.
So the New Zealand players can take 2 minutes to kick for goal when the rule is 60 seconds but that is not time wasting – that sounds like fair refereeing.
So the New Zealand players can waste huge amounts of time when they are ahead on the scoreboard but if they are behind on the scoreboard the rules of the game are reversed – that sounds like fair refereeing.
In the scheme of time wasting, 39 seconds to kick for touch was about a 1 out of 10 on the scale of time wasting in the history of Rugby and the other 79 minutes of the same game.

In hindsight Foley should have elected to kick for goal – then he would have been allowed 60 seconds to take the kick and the game would have been over – that shows taking 39 seconds to kick for touch was not time wasting.

And when Chappell did his under arm bowl to win the match against New Zealand the scoreboard says Australia won – recorded for all time. Not quite as bad but this game will be remembered in the same way.

How many cheekbones has Roosters players broken, how many jaws have Roosters players broken, how many flying elbows to players heads on the ground has Roosters players thrown, how many Roosters have thrown knees into the backs of players who have scored a try and punctured lungs? The answer is none. They are the degusting things players from other teams are doing.

There is no doubt Burgess should have been sent off – and the failure to do so caused the game to go feral.
Remember, Klein is the exact same referee from the Roosters v Rabbitohs match last year when Latrell Mitchell caved in Manu’s face and Klein didn’t even think it was a penalty and was laughing it off.
It was idiotic from the NRL to pick Klein as the referee again after last years refereeing debacle, and Klein just repeated his disgraceful decision making and caused the match to go out of control.

While I agree with your assessment on head slams, I also agree that the JWH tackle was not really a head slam, or not really at all. The players head hit the ground pretty hard but it was because he landed on his back and JWH landed on top of him. JWH didn’t actually slam his head into the ground.
I’m sure many will scream ‘JWH did a head slam’ but actually looking at the actual incident, he really didn’t at all – and he didn’t target the head, he made no contact with the head at all.

Summary of the game. The new Allianz stadium is awesome, that was one of the worst rugby games ever – most of the decisions were unintelligible. Everyone had a great time despite the game.

I was at the game, this was absurd. It was actually after a penalty and 3 advantages, then a line out from the insuing penalty followed by another 5 infringements – all called by the ref. Then somehow all the penalties reversed for a marginal to non existent high tackle.

Good post.

But I do not accept that blowing the whistle to stop play at the end of 80 minutes is distinct from the game actually ending. That really is complete nonsense. The stoppage is the game ending, otherwise it is play on.

Also, from now on every team left with a challenge at the end of the game will now issue a challenge at the end of the game – every time. That’s going to be a great look for the game.

I agree that the NRL is only doing this mental gymnastics to avoid being sued or forced to change the result – as the Tigers have a solid claim the game was actually over and they won and the kick after the game was over was just for fun.

Just for the record I’m not a Tigers fan but this whole incident and response is ridiculous.

Sounds like you are still crying a river 3 years later with that comment 🙂

Perhaps the Raiders should of got the advantage of a completely wrong six again call. That would have been a much fairer result??

Perhaps Cronk should not have been sent to the sin bin on a dubious call as well.

I believe the raiders got 7 penallties to 5 as well.

And it was definately the biased reffing that caused the Raiders drop the ball 10 times in 80 minutes as well.

If that game was the “most biased reffing Ive seen in my life” you must of had a short and sheltered life.

Ah, the good old ‘by the letter of the law’ nonsense.

Laws are written, precedents are set, then decisions are made from precendents. The old chestnut ‘by the letter of the law’ is not how laws work.

The game has never been refereed that way before. The referee has gone out on a complete tangent to all previous referees and refereeing decisions. He made a decision that no referee has ever made before and will never do again. There is no justification in any way to do that. (Note: even by the letter of the law you have written above, it doesn’t justify his decision in any way).

It was a complete brain melt down by the ref. There is no other way to describe it.

Why do people always say the Roosters are a protected team, they are literally the most penalised team in the competition.

Just like players, refs have bad games. I don’t think there is nothing wrong calling them out for that as long as refs get credit for good games as well.

This game the referee seemed to have lost all judgement and had a really bad day.

Perhaps there should be some kind of Dally M for referees. Each game the referees get a 0, 1 or two points depending on their game. Keep the tally secret until the end of the season, and then publish the tally after the end of the season. The referee would definately have got 0 for this game 🙂

“Nothing came from Penrith being given their advantage as rule book stated…why the wail ?”

Because that is never the way the game is refereed and won’t be reffereed that way in the future. How about consistency? Not a one of a kind interpretion that will never be repeated.
I’m happy for a rugby union style advantage rule for league, but it must be applied universally, not just for one team, once. It was actaully a bit of refereeing insanity, I don’t understand how anyone can even begin to justify it.

As for the Verrills ‘spear tackle’, apart from the referee, I don’t think there is another human being on the planet that thought that was a penalty, or even could comprehend what the referee was even talking about.

There was also the incident where Tedesco queried what a penalty was for (so was everyone watching the game) and the referee responded with a smart arse ‘ you can challenge it if you want’ comment. I actually love that referees say this when a player argues the decision, but Tedesco clearly wasn’t doing that – he asked what the penalty was for and the referee knew that – the referee’s handling of that was unprofessional and clearly an indication of loss of judgement.

Why do people still repeat the stupid ‘by the letter of the law’ it was correct (I know you are not saying it). There is no such thing as ‘by the letter of the law’. Laws are written, then they are interpreted and precedents are set. Judgements or rulings are made by precedent – it is basically irrelevant what the actual wording of the law is, all judgements/rulings are based on precedent (unless the law is brand new and has never been tested – so there is no precedent).

Your example of “it was a bit like a ref suddenly penalising a 9 for a crooked feed” is a perfect example. By the letter of the law basically every single scrum without exception should be penalised for being crooked, but the precedent is that it is never penalised.

Basically anyone who uses the old chestnut, “by the letter of the law it is correct” simply has no idea what they are talking about or are just being dishonest. Precedents are what are important. ie. In the past how has the same incident been treated.

I’d have to look at it again but I find it highly dubious they kept their same bind as when they joined the maul yet ended next to the Wallabies halfback when the Wallabies were in complete control of the maul, over and over again.
In hundred and hundreds of games, I’ve never seen a ref allow this and not just tell the player to rejoin the maul at the back.
It was also strange because the player that had crabbed around the maul didn’t try to get their hands on the ball, just get in the way.

Also I’m pretty sure that amazingly, according to the ref Scotland were never offside once in the entire game whilst the Wallabies were penalised multiple times. In reality Scotland were offside lots of times.
The lineouts were pretty bad as well. Scotland played the player in the air a lot of times and pushed early as well. They often had players crab around the maul and end up next the the Wallabies halfback – getting in the way but not actually putting their hands on the halfback. In any other game the ref would tell them to go back the the back of the maul.