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NRL confirm one wrong, two right calls from Dragons’ loss

The NRL reviewed three calls from the game.

Published by
Scott Pryde

The NRL has confirmed one wrong call was made during Sunday afternoon's clash between the Manly Sea Eagles and St George Illawarra Dragons.

In what was a brave home win for the Sea Eagles where the club were forced to play with 13 players for much of the second half, a first-half try to second-rower Haumole Olakau'atu has since been proven to have come on the back of an obstruction.

Called a try at the time by the NRL bunker, the NRL's head of football Graham Annesley, speaking on Monday afternoon at his weekly footy briefing, said Kyle Flanagan was obstructed by Ben Trbojevic.

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"You can see Ben Trbojevic running through there and this was reviewed by the bunker," Annesley said.

"Looking at it a little more closely, you can see Ben going through, the ball goes across the back of Ben and at this point, there is contact between Ben and Kyle Flanagan.

"Haumole then comes back through that gap that is created by Ben. You can see at this point that Kyle Flanagan has Ben between him and the ball carrier and has to move around. He ultimately does get to Haumole but isn't good enough to prevent the try from being scored.

"Not only has Ben made contact with the outside shoulder of Flanagan, he has also stopped in the line. He hasn't prevented Kyle from getting there, but there is definitely an impact on how he got there and whether he could have been in a better position from preventing that try from being scored.

"Bunker decisions on obstruction are controversial at times, we are the first to admit that. They often divide opinion. On balance, we have looked at it this morning, admittedly with much more time than the bunker had to look at this, but that doesn't take away from the fact that in our view, based on the way we have ruled on these things in previous cases that this try should have been overturned and not upheld."

Two other controversial decisions - both on Dragons' tries, were proven to be correct, however.

The first of those came on a Zac Lomax aerial effort. Leaping for a kick, the bunker ruled he had knocked the ball on into a Manly defender, despite appearing to drag the ball backwards.

That's not the way the NRL saw it thought.

"This try was referred to check the grounding, but in this particular case, you'll hear the bunker review an incident before the grounding and they make a decision based on that," Annesley said.

"The bunker in reviewing these incidents is allowed, under our rules, to look at all aspects of this particular play. Even though the decision was referred for grounding, they can look at everything.

"The critical point is as the ball starts to come down, you can clearly see it brushes the fingers of Lomax, then hits an opposition player and comes back to Lomax, that's a knock-on. At this point, the bunker doesn't have to go any further and check the grounding. It automatically negates the prospects of a try and the bunker made a decision on that basis."

Another Lomax try - this time awarded - saw controversy over a potential knock-on, however, Annesley said there was no separation with the ball in the act of scoring.

"The important part of this decision is of course the grounding after they cleared everything else. Remember this try was awarded on the field, and if you go through frame by frame, you can see he has his hand wrapped around the ball and lower arm on top of the ball," Annesley said.

"There was a suggestion by some that the ball comes away before he grounds it, but the bunker I think correctly says they can't see any evidence of separation there. The arm is on top of the ball as he hits the ground, so as long as the hand comes away from the ball, there is absolutely no reason to overturn this decision.

"The important thing that the bunker says is that based on the on-field decision, there is insufficient evidence to overturn the on-field decision."

Published by
Scott Pryde