NRL Bunker official Henry Perenara has been dumped for Saturday night’s game between the Melbourne Storm and Parramatta Eels after he was criticised by Roosters coach Trent Robinson over the Latrell Mitchell-Joseph Manu incident.
On 2GB on Saturday, NRL head of football Graham Annesley confirmed that Perenara was relegated a day after Robinson’s epic spray over Mitchell receiving just a 10-minute sin-bin for a high shot that left Manu’s face battered and swollen.
“Henry was due to officiate on one of the games later today. That won’t be happening, He has been relegated from that game,” Annesley said.
“Certainly based on what happened last night, our expectations and also the pressure that is on him today as a result of last night, it would not have been the right thing to have him officiate tonight.”
The NRL came down hard on Mitchell after the Rabbitohs star’s shocking act in his side’s big win over their historic rivals, with his season all but over, facing a minimum six-week and maximum nine-week ban.
Robinson lashed the Bunker and NRL officials after the Roosters were thumped 54-12 on Friday night. The feisty encounter was filled with drama and it was an incident that left centre Manu with a suspected broken cheekbone that really riled up Robinson.
Manu was clobbered by Mitchell with a vicious high shot, and as a result he needed to go to hospital to receive medical treatment. However, Mitchell was only given 10 minutes in the sin bin by referee Ashley Klein, who also allowed play to continue as Manu lay on the turf after the hit. Only when the Roosters star confronted Mitchell over the tackle and a melee erupted did Klein appear to intervene.
“Everybody saw the incident. I’m just baffled,” a livid Robinson said in his post-match press conference.
“He was down for how long? And then it took Joey to stand up and go and stick up for himself with a depressed fracture of the cheekbone and then they still didn’t want to do anything about it.”
Robinson took aim at Perenara as well as Klein in a fiery, lengthy rant.
“Henry Perenara, sitting in the Bunker, didn’t stop play, didn’t do anything about it,” he said.
“Then Ashley (Klein) asked them to play on and the players went at it again and then (Perenara) just missed it completely.
“Perenara, who’s supposed to know some footy, sitting up in the box – and then doesn’t do anything about it. For maybe 30, 40, 50 seconds, doesn’t do a thing about it. Joey Manu does something about it.
“It’s a common theme this year, about the NRL and the Bunker not looking after our players. It’s been clear. They’ve changed two rules – two of the major rules this year – based on the Bunker and the referees doing nothing about it on Roosters players. And you can say I’m blowing up about a Roosters player, but (Manu is) off at hospital. And then they get forced to finally make a call on it and they send him for 10 in the bin – 10 in the bin! It was laughable. It was that bad, it was almost laughable.
“They didn’t know what they were doing. How do you send that for 10 in the bin? A guy will finish the year based on a late shot to the head and it’s 10 minutes in the bin.”
The Roosters coach went as far as to question whether the officials are worthy of their role after the incident.
“You cannot make decisions if that’s your decision,” he said.
“Get out of there. If you can’t do it get out of there, or just get rid of (the bunker) completely. Get rid of it completely. If you cannot do your job get out of there.
“It’s shown that the NRL Bunker cannot do their job this year. It’s been a farce, it’s been an absolute farce.”
However Annesley did not agree with Robinson’s assertion that NRL officials didn’t stop play and address the issue until Manu confronted Mitchell.
“The audio has been reviewed and the touch judge immediately indicated there may have been a problem with the tackle and asked the Bunker to review it,” Annesley said.
“This was while the play continued because normally when you have a big incident like this, the play usually stops because it is the ball carrier. In this case the ball had gone so the play was continuing and the touch judge asked the bunker to review it.
“So, in the ensuing four tackles the bunker was in the process of reviewing and in fact did review the incident and indicated to the referee they would be coming back for a penalty.
“Then of course we had a penalty awarded for another incident and a melee break out. There was a lot happening at the time but any perception the incident was missed is not accurate. Whether they took the appropriate action is a separate matter.”