NRL head of football Graham Annesley has called out the Bunker for an “unacceptable” missed penalty that cost the Warriors a shot at goal that would have put them in front in the final few minutes in a game they eventually lost to the Bulldogs in golden point.
Monday’s apology won’t help irate Warriors fans who were furious that Bulldogs back-rower Jaeman Salmon wasn’t penalised for late contact on Te Maire Martin that resulted in the Canterbury forward coming off with a broken jaw.
Salmon was offered a two-game ban by the match review committee for the late shot, with Annesley disappointed in Bunker official Adam Gee whose main concern was whether the contact was high and not that Martin had passed the ball well before he was hit.
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“The Bunker did spend all of their time in this review trying to determine whether this was high contact or not,” Annesley lamented.
“What they didn’t do in this case was give due regard to the contact being late and whether the defender could have pulled out of this tackle or not, or at least reduced the velocity of it when it takes place.
“The match review committee did give due regard to the late nature of the contact and the fact that the ball had been passed. They found no evidence of contact with the head or neck, so he was charged with dangerous contact because of the late nature of the tackle.
“The real question is should this have been penalised on the field, and the answer to that is clearly ‘yes, it should have been’. Not because it was high but because it was late.
“I know this was at a critical part of the game. The Bunker did review the incident, but they didn’t give due regard to the issue of lateness.
“We think this is a miss by the match officials. It’s unacceptable, but that’s what took place and I wanted to make it absolutely clear with how that came about, what they were focused on and what they actually missed.”
Meanwhile, Annesley couldn’t explain how referee Ziggy Przeklasa-Adamski got the tackle count right but raised his arm in the game between Cronulla and the Gold Coast that led to the Sharks kicking possession away a tackle earlier than necessary.
Przeklasa-Adamski was always in control of the count but bizarrely raised his arm to signal it was the last tackle despite saying “fourth”, which wasn’t heard by Sharks players.
Ref’s fifth tackle blunder EXPOSED | 00:58
“The referees don’t actually get the tackle count wrong,” Annesley explained.
“But what does happen, on the fourth tackle, as the referee verbalises fourth tackle, he actually says fourth tackle for a reason that even the referee can’t explain. Obviously, it’s a lapse in concentration. As he’s calling fourth tackle, he raises his arm in the air, indicating fifth tackle.
“So he’s calling fourth tackle but indicating fifth tackle.
“I can’t explain it. The referee can’t explain it. He feels terrible about it, of course. But there can be no explanation for it, it’s just one of those things that happens involuntarily. The arm goes up, it shouldn’t go up on the fourth tackle, but it did.
“We can only be open and transparent about it. It did cut the tackle count short by one, the Sharks should’ve had one more play before they were required to kick or run on the fifth tackle.”