Rugby league legends Brad Fittler and Andrew Johns have debated the necessity of the NRL’s Bunker as the game reconciles the aftermath of the Latrell Mitchell-Joseph Manu incident.
Bunker referee Henry Perenara was again stood down from his duties following criticism over his decision not to intervene last Friday night and send off Mitchell for his ferocious hit on Manu which saw the Rabbitohs star simply sent to the sin bin for 10 minutes.
Perenara has copped a lot of heat over his performance over that incident, with Billy Slater telling 2GB’s WWOS Radio that he’d become the scapegoat for general issues with the Bunker – a point that Johns and Fittler agreed with.
“I think it’s been a bit of a disaster actually,” Fittler said on Wide World of Sports’ Freddy and The Eighth.
The NSW Blues coach questioned whether the Bunker’s time might be up for officiating rugby league games beyond sin bins and send-offs.
“I think everyone is really starting to understand our game is so mobile that the best refereeing isn’t always nit-picky of everything that goes wrong in the game, it’s the one that at the end of the day is the fairest. So I think they’ll take the Bunker out of play,” he said.
“I do think there’s a position for sin bins and send-offs.
“The Latrell incident would’ve been totally missed because of the way it happened – Joey [Manu] was trying to score then the ball came out and the ball took off and everyone’s eyes were somewhere else. I think they would’ve missed that totally.
“I think we can live a lot more with what referees do a lot better than the Bunker interrupting the game.”
Johns was not supportive of the Bunker’s use beyond try-scoring decisions, arguing that the “sterile environment” of the set-up does not allow them to get the feel for the games they officiate.
The Eighth Immortal proposed that the NRL flirt with removing the Bunker for certain officiating in matches with no bearing on the top eight this weekend. However Johns was doubtful such a bold move would be taken.
“Moving forward we need to work out the Bunker and where it sits in the game. For me the Bunker should only ever come into play in a try-scoring situation,” he said.
“I’d love for a weekend where we bring back the in-goal touch judges and we don’t have the Bunker and see what happens and see how many errors are made.
“This weekend might be a great opportunity with no teams playing for the eight to see what happens when there is no Bunker. But I know it’ll never happen because in every sport technology is so entrenched in the game.”
Fittler said the biggest problem at the moment in the NRL is that there was some confusion over what warrants a sin bin or send-off, especially since the crackdown on high contact earlier this season which led to penalties and players being put on report in astonishing numbers.
“There’s no definitive line, that’s the thing,” he said.
“If you want to have definitive lines you’re going to have these arguments every single week. You’ve just got to place it on its merits, weigh up the game and everything that’s happening, weigh up if it’s intentional and then in the case of Latrell [Mitchell], if it’s too careless then weigh that up as well.
“There’s no line, there’s no definitive on what’s a sin bin or send-off or reckless or careless, it just comes down to the good people in those positions to make those decisions and you just live with them.”
Another issue which has irked Fittler of late was players seemingly milking penalties. He wants to see a rule brought in where players who stay down have to go off for a certain period of time, in the same way head knocks take players off for concussion tests.
“Players lying down at the moment – seriously. There’s got to be a rule if you lie down, you go off. You go off for a couple of minutes,” Fittler said.
“Because not only does it break the game down, with the game played best under fatigue, it invites people to do it to get those penalties coming out of trouble.”
“It goes against the fabric of the game – what the game is built on,” Johns added.
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