NRL referees in firing line over sin-bin farce

Last week the NRL’s Head of Football, Graham Annesley, came out publicly and declared the dangerous hip-drop tackle was not that confusing if people just took the time to understand it.

Well, Graham, it seems your own referees didn’t take your advice given Patrick Carrigan’s sin bin for a tackle which at worst resembled a hip drop, but wasn’t.

You can’t get every decision right.

But you shouldn’t get so many obvious calls wrong either, especially with all the expensive technology available to review them.

Rugby league is, and always will be, a game of split-second decisions, judgement calls, interpretation, and opinion, whether you have one or two referees, eyes on the sideline and the use of a multimillion-dollar Bunker.

But still, the officials are getting too many crucial decisions wrong.

Rugby league fans are becoming increasingly frustrated at the high number of officiating errors, many which have a major impact on games, and the inconsistency in interpreting rules from one week to the next.

READ: Gillmeister on hip-drop tackles and NRL injury crisis

There are more players being sent to the sin bin, more set restarts on the run and more penalties awarded with the introduction of a number of rule changes in the past few seasons.

Round 11 was by far the worst this season.

The officiating was very disappointing, with players and coaches alike being highly critical of a number of decisions they claimed impacted the result.

Carrigan was penalised and put in the bin for 10 minutes at a crucial stage by referee Todd Smith for an alleged hip-drop tackle which was deemed harsh given video reviews showed he never landed on Melbourne forward Nelson Asofa-Solomona’s legs.

Gerard Sutton was the Bunker review official who made the call.

The NRL’s Judiciary threw the case out, as most expected.

There were many other instances of questionable calls that cost teams heavily at the weekend.

One of the worst played a big part in ruining St George Illawarra captain Ben Hunt’s hopes of celebrating his 300th NRL game with a win against the Cowboys in Townsville.

The Cowboys won the game 42-22, but the decision by referee Chris Butler to send Dragons halfback Jayden Sullivan to the sin bin for a professional foul on Cowboys winger Kyle Feldt was lambasted.

The game was locked at 6-6 at the time and replays showed Sullivan was in fact caught underneath Feldt and trying to get free when his teammate Tyrone Sloane flopped on top of Feldt, who was also tangled up with Sullivan.

If anyone should have gone to the bin, it probably should have been Sloane, while Feldt appeared to be holding Sullivan down in the tackle.

The Cowboys crossed for three tries while Sullivan was in the bin, turning the game on its head.

Then there was also a heavy 10-3 penalty count in favour of the Raiders against Parramatta and the controversial sin-binning of fiery Canberra forward Corey Horsburgh for punching Parramatta’s Ryan Maddison during a first-half scuffle.

The pair have history dating back three years to when Horsburgh badly injured his ankle in a tackle involving Maddison.

Horsburgh limped off the field in tears that afternoon to the boos of the Parramatta crowd after he gave them a two-fingered gesture.

Canberra coach Ricky Stuart and many others questioned the inconsistency of the officials, who during Magic Round took no action against South Sydney superstar Latrell Mitchell when he twice struck out and pushed Storm hooker Harry Grant in the head after he fairly tackled Mitchell fielding a bomb.

Stuart was entitled to ask and get an explanation for why Horsburgh was sent to the sin bin for a similar offence this weekend.

“I think Corey shouldn’t have got 10 minutes. I thought that was a poor decision in regard to the sin-binning of Corey. That really put us under pressure,” Stuart said.

Brisbane fullback Reece Walsh got away with a shoulder charge on Melbourne’s Justin Olam that saved a try, but he was later fined $1,500 over the incident.

Let’s hope the events of round 11 trigger a response and we see fewer errors from officials this week.

More sports news