The NRL's head of elite competitions Graham Annesley has confirmed Stephen Crichton should have been sin binned during the Canterbury Bulldogs' Friday night win over the New Zealand Warriors.
In what was a tricky weekend consistency-wise for the referees, Annesley confirmed on Monday afternoon that Crichton should have been sin binned by bunker official Liam Kennedy and on-field referee Wyatt Raymond and hinted that Kennedy would be dropped from the bunker as per previous reports.
“We have listened to the audio, and it's purely a judgment error,” Annesley explained during his footy briefing at NRL HQ.
“The Bunker official involved just didn't give due consideration to the impact of the tackle. They have criteria that they look at, but they have to make an assessment of how serious that particular incident was.
“It was purely a poor judgment call. A lot of time and effort goes into getting the referees and the match review committee on the same page with these things.
“Sometimes people's judgment lets them down, and that's what happened in this case. We haven't done appointments yet, but you can probably gauge from my comments that it was a serious error.”
Annesley went on to admit during his briefing that the match review committee and referees should be on the same page when it comes to Grade 2 or 3 charges (as Crichton was hit with) being sin binned.
“We would like this (number) to be higher, 80 per cent is not good enough,” Annesley said.
“We need to be getting much closer to a perfect score here about having tackles that are considered to be the more serious types of tackles by the match review committee that result in a grade 2 or 3 charge, that they are sin binned or sent off.
“Eighty per cent does give you an indication that across the course of the season, the referees have been reasonably consistent with this.
“Because we have been reasonably consistent with this, it in some ways leads to the commentary we've had over the weekend where we've almost conditioned everyone to recognise what results in a sin bin or a send off, so when it doesn't happen, everyone is up in arms.
“That can only happen if they're getting most of them right, and they are, but it's not good enough to get one wrong in any round of football because they should be getting them right.”
While Annesley didn't take exception to other decisions over the course of the weekend, it won't do anything to help his - or head of referees Jared Maxwell's - cause.
The duo are both reportedly set to have their positions evaluated over the off-season following a disappointing season for officials where decisions have constantly been either questioned or proven wrong.
While it's unclear at this stage how deep the investigation will run, reports suggest the duo may be lucky to be in their roles for 2025.