NRL GF - A cockup of monumental proportion

[Redneck]

Six again. You can talk about the 2019 NRL grand final until you feel like you've rubbed your larynx with sandpaper but these are the only two words you will ever need to say.

Six again. The phrase will forever evoke one of the most infamous incidents in NRL history, a moment of gobsmacking confusion that turned an incredibly engrossing contest into an utter farce.

Six again. The very mention will forever fill Canberra Raiders fans with despair, taking them back to that moment deep in the second half when the game was there to be won by their defiant heroes.

The score is 8-8 and the Raiders have had the Sydney Roosters trapped near the goal line so long they could claim property rights in their defensive twenty.

The Raiders kick, the ball rebounds back into their hands and then … what?

Must they put on a final play or do they have another set with which to launch yet another raid on the Roosters' heavily fortified line?

The answer comes quickly and unequivocally. Referee Ben Cummins standing near the in-goal directly in the attacking Raiders' line of sight waves his hand in a gesture that can only mean one thing.

Six again!

So eventual Clive Churchill Medal winner Jack Wighton is not guessing when he takes a tackle and gets ready for another set. His actions are directly and unquestionably guided by the referee's call.

Six again!

And then it isn't six at all. The call has been changed. The Roosters have the ball and moments later they have scored the winning try.


So what should have been a celebrated NRL grand final will be forever overshadowed by a legitimate controversy, not just another of the molehills turned into mountains by the game's incessant crisis merchants.

The NRL's attempt at damage control was rapid and predictable. NRL Head of Football Graham Annesley played the "one wrong made a right" card by claiming that the correct decision was made the wrong way.

Besides, Annesley argued, if the Raiders had scored from an incorrectly awarded repeat set then controversy would have raged about that.

Which completely misses the point. By getting the right decision in the wrong way the course of the game was completely changed.

If the Raiders had not been fooled by the referee's call into believing they would have, yes, six again perhaps they would have tried a grubber kick or a bomb or even another pass that would take the ball a few metres away from where the Roosters inevitably played it.

Who knows? That is the hollow feeling the Raiders will carry with them through the preseason. Given how hard it is to make an NRL grand final, let alone win one, perhaps it will be with them for the rest of their careers, even their lives.

All eyes turned to Canberra's combustible coach Ricky Stuart after the game as they might toward an active volcano puffing clouds of black smoke.

But Stuart was too smart to erupt in front of the microphones. As the veteran coach said, there was nothing in complaining for him except accusations he was a poor sport attempting to rain on the parade of a team he once coached to a premiership.

Instead, Stuart expertly loaded the media's guns for them.

Stuart: "Why don't you say what you think?"

Reporters: "They made the wrong call."

Stuart: "OK, well write it."

And we will. For years and years because grand finals are like historical documents. And this was a cock-up of historic proportions.

If there can be consolation for Raiders fans understandably outraged by the rescinded call of six again, it will be that their team had been magnificent.

In the opening minutes the Raiders had suffered another potentially defining misfortune when the ball rebounded and struck a Roosters' trainer instead of giving them the chance to charge toward the line.

This was followed soon after by a Roosters try that might have been a dagger in their heart. Yet the Raiders slowly changed the game's narrative with an at-times dominant performance in defiance of their generous odds.

In such circumstances you are supposed to say that good fortune is part of sport so the Roosters unequivocally deserved their victory.

In this case, it is difficult to say that for sure.

What you can say is that the Roosters resisted Canberra's attacks with incredible resilience and might well have done so again had the Raiders been given six again, or not been mistakenly told they would get another set.

You can also state unequivocally, as Roosters coach Trent Robinson noted, that his team fully exploited the luck that went their way.

"We nailed the execution," said Robinson.

cont
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-10-07/ ... y/11578252

[Redneck]

More Nonsense



Heads have got to roll.

There are few things worse in the sporting pantheon than seeing a totally avoidable situation impact upon a game negatively, especially one that has been warned against for years.

But that’s what happened when the Roosters orange shirt trainer interfered with the play during the 2019 grand final. The referees’ decision to award the scrum to the Roosters was technically correct – but morally wrong.


The blame lies squarely with NRL Operations and their complicity for years in letting the trainers flaunt the rules of the game.

Two sets after a person who shouldn’t have been allowed on the field interfered with the play – albeit not intentionally – the Chooks scored a vital try. In a match won by six points, it was a pivotal moment.

When Sia Soliola charged down the Luke Keary kick, it rebounded directly into the Roosters trainer who was – for some unknown reason – on the field.

This wasn’t a bizarre isolated incident.

This was an accident that had been waiting to happen for years.

They have been warned for years of the risk that a sudden change in possession could see a trainer get caught up in the play.


Yet the NRL Operations Manager – Nathan McGuirk – has been allowing the team trainers to blatantly operate in contravention of the NRL’s own rules that are detailed in their Operations Manual.

Here is the key area of the NRL’s Manual that has only been vaguely enforced since at least the 2015 season:

“In all cases when trainers enter the field of play to either; attend to an injured player, carry water, or deliver individual messages, they must immediately leave the field once their assigned task has been completed and return to the player’s bench.”

Yeah…

That isn’t even sort of what happens.

They are always on the field.

The NRL’s guidelines clearly state that their presence on the field cannot in any way constitute a disadvantage to the opposing team either.

So while the referees’ decision to award the scrum to the Roosters could be argued to be correct – although there is a counter-argument that the charge down changed the attacking team to be the Raiders – there is no question that morally the ball should have gone to the Raiders.

In the AFL if the ball touches a runner it is a free kick and a 50-metre penalty to the opposition team. That really incentivises them to stay the hell away from the play.

In the NRL the orange trainers can’t carry any messages at all. Their role is to attend to injured players, provide water (only when their team is in possession), and they can also be involved in the on-field interchange process.

So what exactly was the Roosters trainer doing directly behind the line in just the third minute of the grand final?

There was no one injured, and as it was the very start of the match there were no interchanges to be made, nor did anyone require water.

Yet there the Roosters orange shirt trainer was. On the field. And in the way.

He was being allowed to be there and when he got in the way of an opposition attacking chance it was his side that directly benefited.

Rather than Elliott Whitehead having the opportunity to scoop up the ball and try to make the try line, the Roosters got the scrum and, two consecutive sets later, scored a vital try instead.

It was a crucial incident and a completely avoidable one. McGuirk’s job is to make sure the games are run in line with the rules set out in the Operations Manual. This incident is a complete failure on his part.

The NRL will fine the hell out of a coach for not speaking at a press conference – another rule in their operations manual – but the orange and blue shirt trainers are constantly on the field, which poses an actual risk to the gameplay. Their priorities are massively out of whack to say the least.


You might not think trainers on the field is a big deal. However, with it comes dangers. Dangers McGuirk has positively been informed of, and should understand.

Firstly, it allows on-field coaching, which blatantly occurs every game but is forbidden.

Secondly, it poses the risk of the trainers illegally getting involved with the match, as Alan Langer did in Round 4, 2016.

Further, Kurt Wrigley did it in Round 16, 2016 when the then Rabbitohs assistant coach and blue shirt trainer, violently reefed the ball out from under a possibly injured Tyrone Peachey.

While Wrigley was suspended for a week, nothing occurred to Langer.

Thirdly, it poses the risk that the trainers will get in the way of the play – just as the Roosters trainer did in the biggest match of 2019.

In the 2016 grand final, Cronulla Sharks blue shirt trainer Steve Price was illegally on the field in the last moments of the grand final. He had been yelling out instructions to the Shark’s defenders from the sideline.

However, he was actually on the field of play during the crucial last moments, and it was widely contended that the Storm’s Ben Hampton may have confused Price for a Sharks defender and chosen not to pass to the actually completely unmarked Chase Blair as a result.

McGuirk has been warned repeatedly about these risks for years. And yet Todd Greenberg now has a massive headache on the very topic.

How McGuirk will try to explain it away is anyone’s guess. Fortunately, Ben Cummins’ almighty six-again blunder has taken some of the blowtorch off his belly.

It’s s good bet that there will be blamestorming happening right now at NRL HQ in Moore Park.

McGuirk should be praying that his scalp isn’t the one his superiors find to be the most convenient to throw to the baying mob.

I see no reason why it shouldn’t be though.

In spite of being repeatedly warned about the risks of non-enforcement, he’s continually failed to enforce the rules in regards to trainers on the field.

And now that’s caused a major issue in a grand final – and it was totally avoidable.

It’s well overdue for Greenberg to call him to account.

https://www.theroar.com.au/2019/10/07/t ... d-nothing/

[sprintcyclist]

yes.

6 again means 6 again.

Trainers are more often on the field than off.
The broncos are very bad offenders at that.

[billy the kid]

How many times have we heard a commentator say something along the lines of
"I hope this never happens in a Grand Final"...due to an error by officials......
AND Im not just talking about this season...its been happening for years.
SWITCH over to the cricket and they give guys out LBW when the ball is clearly nicked onto the pad...etc etc...
Officialdom needs a drastic shakeup in all sports....I wont rant any more....
AND there is the offshoot from these errors....countless domestic violence and alcohol fuelled violence
due to the incompetence.....
Nothing changes....it needs to....but it wont....four refs on the field in every game plus the bunker
and they still stuff it up.....