NRL head of football Graham Annesley has backed the Bunker’s controversial no-try call in the Dolphins’ narrow, season-ending loss to the Knights that left Wayne Bennett fuming.
Bennett declared the NRL needs to get rid of the Bunker claiming another blunder had been made when Trai Fuller’s try was overturned for obstruction in the lead-up.
“If that’s where we’re going, we’re in a fair bit of trouble in the game because that’s a try,” Bennett said in his post-match press conference.
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“The 3 defender committed to our player, who ran the inside shoulder which he’s supposed to do and the 4 defender ran into him and they (Bunker) said we obstructed the 4 defender.
“If that’s the case, then there will be no more of those tries scored because they’ll run straight into the (lead runner) deliberately because they know they’ll get a penalty. You understand what I’m saying?
“He ran the inside shoulder line, which is the player he is supposed to run on and that player committed to him, you can see all that. But as he’s committing to him, the 4 defender also runs into him and that’s where they reckon the obstruction occurred. It’s just crazy.”
But on Monday Annesley declared the Bunker had made the correct decision, saying while Jack Cogger had committed to the tackle on Connelly Lemuelu, the impact of Lemuelu on Brodie Jones – who ended up tackling Fuller, but too late – was illegal.
“Obstruction, I’ve talked about it on many occasions, even over recent weeks. These are all very difficult calls, they’re calls that could in the view of the beholder go either way, but we’ve reviewed this thoroughly this morning and spent a lot of time talking about it and listening to audio,” Annesley said.
“Involved in this incident we’ve got Connelly Lemuelu who is the lead runner, Jack Cogger and Brodie Jones are the two defenders, and Trai Fuller is the player who ultimately crosses to claim the try.
“Lemuelu approaches the defence and we can see we’ve got Jack Cogger who is going into a low tackling position, so he’s bent over … and directly in front of him is Brodie Jones in the upright position. So there’s no doubt that Jack Cogger has made a defensive decision to take Lemuelu, and you can see that as Jones sees – he’s obviously covering to make sure Lemuelu doesn’t get the ball, and then he starts to shift across, shuffling across, Lemuelu makes contact with him and it jolts him back.
“So he takes a step backwards and then, in many cases, you would probably see a player fall in that situation having been contacted by a lead runner. But of course we don’t want players taking dives and we certainly don’t want to encourage players to take dives. In this case Jones has decided that he’s going to continue covering, comes across, and then you can see that now as he approaches Trai Fuller he makes a tackle, or attempts a tackle. He gets to him and finishes up on top of him as he goes across the line.
Abdo backs bunker after Bennett spray | 02:03
“The real issue here for the Bunker is I think they can discount that in the case of Cogger, that is strictly a defensive decision, but other defenders including Jones, he has obviously the right to try and cover the lead runner but he also has a right to continue across to try and chase the ball. And he does that, and he does a pretty good job of getting there, making contact there, but he does have his run checked.
“As Lemuelu comes through you can see Jones bounce back there, he has to reset, set off in the chase and gets there. So in this situation would he have got there one or two steps earlier, would he have been able to effect a better tackle? Potentially, we’ll never know the answer to that, but the fact is that there was contact by the lead runner on a player who is entitled to try and defend without being impacted by a player from the team in possession who doesn’t have the ball. And that’s exactly what happened in this case.”
Earlier in the day NRL CEO Andrew Abdo backed the Bunker remaining, despite Bennett’s calls to scrap it.
“I think it’s ridiculous to consider a sport not using technology to make decisions,” he said.
“If you think about all the decisions that are made with (tries) scored in the corners … we’ve seen the Bunker be really efficient, quick and accurate, and 99 per cent of the time they get it right.
“Then you’re going to get calls that are subjective. Obstruction is where we have guidelines, but it is ultimately a call that needs to be made.
“When you have lead runners take out defenders, you run the risk of that being called back and penalised.
“When I talk about the Bunker, it’s nothing more than a referee using technology to assist the on-field referee to make the right call for the fans.
“Talk that the Bunker is of no value, I don’t think that’s right.
“Wayne is one of the all-time great coaches of our game and he’s just been inducted into the Hall of Fame, so he’s entitled to his views and opinions.
“He’s talking about all he’s put into the season and he feels hard done by, and I can respect that.
“He hasn’t called into account the integrity of any of the officials so I don’t have any issue with him expressing his views.
“I don’t necessarily agree, but that’s his right.”
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