I'm on record as being vehemently opposed to Graham Annesley's weekly, officiating debriefs.
Each week we have to endure Graham Annesley painstakingly breaking down a serious of refereeing calamities.
Truthfully it's a no win situation. Either Annesley is truthful and criticises refereeing errors and it seen as not supporting his staff.
Or Annesley, the NRL head of football elite competitions, backs his officials and fans and coaches pick apart what is seen as blind support.
I'd learned to largely ignore them, bar looking for fodder for columns similar to this, but on Monday, Annesley hopped onto two skies, put on his leather jacket and jumped the shark.
For those who missed it, Annesley publicly backed Kasey Badger's decision to sin bin Roger Tuivasa-Sheck during Saturday afternoon's romp loss to the Titans.
This despite universal condemnation for one of the all-time Bunker clangers.
RTS was sat down for ten minutes, shocking he, fans and commentators alike, after a tackle gone every so slightly wrong on Jayden Campbell.
We're talking half a degree over the horizontal, which was deemed dangerous enough to sit the duel international down for ten minutes.
I'll cop the penalty. Lifting tackles, as long as they don't occur in Origin, are always penalised.
That said, to say sending him to the sin bin for that tackle was an overreaction is perhaps the biggest understatement I will ever make.
Quite frankly it's insulting our intelligence as fans to be expected to stomach the explanation offered up by Badger and then backed by Annesley.
Annesley said that "what could have potentially happened in that tackle" was taken into account. As if any tackle ever made in rugby league couldn't potentially go wrong.
You cannot punish a player for what could have gone wrong. You penalise and rule on what happened.
I understand that the tackle could have gone wrong, but it didn't. Campbell landed flat on his back.
Again, I am ok with a penalty being awarded. He was tipped past the horizontal, but the tackle didn't end dangerously. It not being dangerous ultimately defeats the purpose of a "dangerous tackle".
The sin bin was an error. One that Annesley stood, with a straight face, and backed to wry smiles across social media.
This 100% looks like an effort by officials to ban lifting tackles. They said as much.
According to an NRL dot com report, "The NRL is working to eliminate lifting tackles from the game and players will face significant penalties if they go wrong."
The very same lifting tackle that has been lauded by every single commentator, fan and official in the rugby league community when it happened two weeks ago by Liam Martin in Origin 1.
The very same lifting tackle that has been replayed countless times across all platforms, including the game's official website.
The very same lifting tackle that saw Liam Martin given a ridiculously favourable rating across Origin rankings.
So which is it? Is the NRL trying to outlaw the tackle or cash in on it?
Annesley's role isn't to rub tackles out of the game. Even if his role was to rule tackles out, he and his rag tag officials have hardly enjoyed any success with the lotto that has become hop drops.
His role, here in these reviews anyway, is to break down errors made by his officials, or to clarify why his officials were right.
In this instance Kasey Badger got it wrong. Very wrong.
Way more wrong than the tackle anyway. RTS missed by the slightest of margins.
Much like with crushers, high shots or hip drops, not ever lifting tackle is an automatic sin bin.
I actually thought Liam Martin's tackle in Origin was worse than this. He sent J'maine Hopgood over the horizontal and onto his shoulder.
Almost identical to the breakdown that Badger and Annesley used to justify their overreaction.
I don't remember seeing Annesley stand in front of media and officials breaking down why Liam Martin should have been sin binned.
Right now I'm actually on the NRL official Facebook page where the Martin tackle is marked "Liam Martin goes WHACK" and has over 1.3 million views.
Doesn't really look like the NRL is looking to outlaw this tackle.
Looks like an NRL official blindly supporting a horror decision made by an out of depth official in the Bunker.
Why focus on the 1-5% of decisions you donโt agree with. The issue is the complete lack of acceptance by rugby league fans that 50/50 or even 20/80s will happen. And then people like yourself use words like calamity or howler to describe a decision that is probably technically right.
95% of the time refs rule exactly the way 95% of us think. 1-5% they make decisions that 25-90% think should have been different.
And we focus on that
To the point we have a refs press conference. What other sport has a refs press conference.
Itโs a ridiculous over focus.
A team can make 50 missed tackles , 20 errors and we talk about one 50/50 ref call
Talk about crazy.
Warriors lost by 60 and for some inane reason we are talking about a tackle and sin bin. Yes many of us including myself would not have sin binned him. But the Gawl to suggest annersleys explanation is wrong is ridiculous. You just donโt like it.
When that tackle was made every titans player and most titans fans would flung arms up and yelled penalty.
My final point this sort of referee bashing filters to local leagues and kids where 15 year old refs spend whole game copping abuse because thatโs what we do in rugby league.
As a stakeholder maybe write your next article on one of the 45 missed tackles, 13 errors or 12 line breaks conceded by warriors.