NRL head of football Graham Annesley has made a huge admission, conceding Mitchell Moses’ pass to spark the Eels’ first try against the Cowboys was a “marginal” forward pass. Parramatta came away with a 24-20 victory over North Queensland on Friday night and the controversial four-pointer left a sour taste in the mouth of Cowboys fans.
Following an NRL review into the incident on Monday, Annesley confirmed referee Grant Atkins, alongside his touch judges, missed the forward pass.
“After reviewing the Moses pass (on Monday morning) it does appear to be forward out of his hands, which is the only thing that matters under the laws of the game. It is marginal, but forward nonetheless,” Annesley said.
Many of the game’s greats including Wally Lewis and Greg Alexander slammed the referees’ inability to pick up on Moses’ blunder, with Lewis labelling it as “an absolute disgrace.”
While Blues legend Laurie Daley admitted it was a forward pass he didn’t think it was as obvious as others claimed it to be.
It was forward but I didn’t it was as big of a forward pass as some of the ones I’ve seen this year,” Daley told Sky Racing’s Big Sports Breakfast.
“As in I don’t think it was a six metre, three metre forward pass.
“It was forward and it shouldn’t have been a try but I’ve seen a lot worse than that one.”
As it stands, the Bunker is unable to rule on forward passes and The Daily Telegraph’s Phil Rothfield put forward a number of changes to what can be reviewed.
"What annoys me Loz is the bunker nit picks all year and picks up stuff that doesn’t need to be picked up and then you have something that I thought was pretty obvious and they’re powerless to act,” Rothfield said.
“I would like to see and try and change to the bunker next year and the way it operates.
companies,” Annesley said.
“There is a number of companies who have possible solutions but we are not near taking anything (to the Commission).”
The Eels will be eager to break their 36-year premiership drought when they take on reigning premiers the Penrith Panthers in the grand final on Sunday night.
Replies
Hopefully this GPS tracking technology that goes into the ball works and this will no longer be a problem.
If it happened at the end and was the last play or last points scored then they were robbed. But fact is the butterfly effect is a real thing. You don't know how the game flows from that point on if the right call was made. Fact is they were winning 20-12 late in the game and we came back in shocking conditions away from home to win. We deserve the win. Plus let's not forget it says someone in the rule book that a player playing the ball can't interfer with the markers, eg grab then and cause them to fall over...
Also Moses was held back in one of the Cowboys tries which should have been a penalty to the Eels. So if deducted the 6 points for both tries and conversions the Eels would still have won the game
Yeah funny how they never mentioned that. Should have been no try and a sin binning for professional foul.
Even the commentators were saying that should have been pulled up ... also what about the penalty we didn't receive the high shot on papali'i
Annesley did mention it, said it could have been disallowed.
He mentioned the Moses incident? Didn't hear him say anything about it but I could have missed it.
People need to understand these 2 points.
1. The game is better for having a video review system of some kind, despite some of the Bunker's baffling calls.
2. For as long as the Bunker is in place, no matter their guidelines and procedures, people will ALWAYS be calling for a review and/or overhaul of the Bunker.
1) No it's not
2) Rightly so
1, Disagree.
2, Agree
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