Grant Atkins will be tasked with officiating Sunday’s NRL Grand Final following Ashley Klein’s penalty-a-thon on Friday night.
Klein entered preliminary final week as the favourite to be officiating this year’s grand final, but his performance in the Storm-Sharks prelim was heavily panned after he whistled 18 penalties.
“Mate, if that’s a prelim and you want a grand final to have 18 penalties … I am not sooking about the ref, the better side won today,” Sharks coach Craig Fitzgibbon said.
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“Melbourne were the better side today, hands down. But I think the first half was 22 minutes of ball-in-play. What are we doing for a prelim?”
The Daily Telegraph’s Phil Rothfield reported on NRL 360 that Klein has paid the price.
“I’m 99.9% certain that Ashley Klein will be sacked as grand final referee,” Rothfield said on Triple M’s Sunday Sin Bin.
“I spoke to key people at the NRL and these people have been really strong backers of Ashley Klein for a number of years, but they were really disappointed with his performance on Friday night.
“All Grant Atkins has to do is get a pass mark at Suncorp Stadium this afternoon and he will referee his first grand final.”
Atkins did just that, receiving a pass mark despite not sin-binning Liam Martin for being the third man in when Ezra Mam and Nathan Cleary went at it.
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It’s not the first time this finals series that Klein’s performance has come under fire.
He officiated the controversial 94-minute epic between Brisbane and Canberra, with several calls criticised.
“I thought he had an off game,” journalist Brent Read said following Brisbane’s 29-28 win.
Former NRL star Wade Graham is another who has been critical with the job Klein has done in recent weeks.
“Ashley Klein has been disappointing in this finals series. I think of the Raiders-Broncos games and then on Friday night,” Graham said.
“The way the game eventuated last night with the amount of penalties, I think that’s it for him this year.”
Klein has refereed three grand finals, including the 2022 and 2024 deciders.
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