NRL head of football Graham Annesley says he doesn’t want the competition to “become like NFL” with mounting in-game stoppages and reviews after the Titans caused controversy on the weekend with two captain’s challenges.
During their 26-20 loss to the Eels on Saturday night, the Titans on two occasions deliberately gave away a penalty so they could access their captain’s challenge, with both reviews proving successful.
In both incidents, the Titans deliberately committed a ruck infringement so a penalty would be called, giving them the ability to challenge the moments in the lead-up to the penalty.
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And while they were successful with both Bunker reviews finding mistakes from the Eels before the eventual deliberate penalties, the NRL made it clear that going forward, penalties issued for slow rucks can’t be challenged.
Annesley confirmed referee Peter Gough should’ve never allowed the Titans to deploy their captain’s challenge.
“There’s no hard and fast way of determining whether a referee should give a penalty for a slow ruck… they use their own judgement to say this ruck has taken too long, I’m going to penalise – whether it’s lying on the tackled player, a hand in the ruck, whether it’s trying to strip the ball, whatever it might be,” Annesley said.
“If the referee determines the ruck is taking too long, they give a penalty.
“Slow play the ball is something that cannot be challenged.”
At the time of the first deliberate penalty by the Titans, the referee warned that if unsuccessful, they risked a player going to the sin bin.
Annesley again made it clear that the response from referee Gough was the wrong instructions.
“So the referee in this circumstance and the next one, when he awarded the penalty and the players said they wanted to challenge, the referee’s response should’ve been ‘that’s not a challengeable decision’. The game should’ve continued,” Annesley added.
“You heard the referee say there ‘if this is unsuccessful, you’re going to go to the sin bin’.
“That’s not the procedure either. Yes, you can finish up in the sin bin in these circumstances, but not because you challenged. It should never have gotten to a challenge.
“The referee should’ve said you can’t challenge the decision.”
Annesley said he didn’t want the NRL to become like the NFL with mounting in-game stoppages.
“The decision they (Titans) challenged, they were ultimately right. There was a knock-on in this, but if we don’t have rules about what you can challenge and what you can’t challenge and how far you can go back – we will get these situations all the time, where players will be deliberately breaking down the play in order to challenge decisions,” Annesley continued.
“We will be stopping on a regular basis. It will become like NFL where we will be stopping after every play and reviewing things.
“If the referee had followed the correct procedure, the challenge wouldn’t have been allowed.
“The error the Titans were complaining about wouldn’t have been picked up.”
Should players continue to deliberately give away penalties to use the captain’s challenge, Annesley said they risk going to the sin bin.
“If I could get one point through to players, it’s that your effort will be completely wasted because you won’t get the challenge anyway,” he said.
“The only thing you could get – and this is at the referee’s discretion – is to find yourself in the sin bin.
“I would say to any club that wants to continue with the full complement of players on the field, there’s a high risk (of a sin-binning).”
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