Bunker debacles will cost rugby league team a grand final win, Mike Colman writes

COLMAN’S CALL: The referee bunker is beyond a joke. The NRL must step in a scrap the multi-million dollar disaster before it costs someone a grand final.

The bunker denied Joe Burgess a try that all but ended the Rabbitohs’ season.

THAT’S it. Rip down the NRL bunker and sell off all the TV screens and computer keyboards. Use the proceeds to lure Bill Harrigan out of retirement.

Seriously, could he be any worse?

There have been some crook decisions over the years, but the bunker’s no-try ruling when Souths’ winger Joe Burgess almost forced the air out of the ball as he banged it down over the line on Monday night takes the cake.

Like most league fans, I have watched replays of that incident half a dozen times and with each viewing it is more obviously a try.

As Fox commentator Warren Smith so aptly put it: “You don’t have to grip it like an eagle with a mouse in its claw.”

NO TRY: NRL backs bunker’s Bunny boiler

VIDEO: does this prove Burgess bunker call was correct?

The bunker denies Joe Burgess a potential match-winning try. Picture: Brett Costello

Now I know a lot of people couldn’t care less whether South Sydney makes the eight. After the season they have had so far, they don’t deserve to. Neither, for that matter, do their Monday night opponents Manly.

But ask yourself this: how would you feel if an equally nonsensical ruling by the bunker keeps your team out of the play-offs – or worse – robs it of a finals, or even grand final, win?

Because that is where we are headed.

After the onslaught of blunders that began with head-scratching non-try decisions against Matt Gillett and Johnathan Thurston in the round four grand final replay at Suncorp, and have continued through the NRL and Origin series (remember Michael Jennings’ “non-interference interference” in Andrew Fifita’s try in Game 3?”) the bunker was labelled “a joke”.

Well it’s no joke now. It is a bona fide disaster that is on track to destroy the credibility of the game.

The day it was unveiled to a hopeful public, NRL boss Todd Greenberg made the prediction that the bunker would make “zero mistakes” this season. Given what has happened so far, and genuine fears of what is yet to happen, that comment could one day rank right up there with claims that the Titanic was unsinkable.

Rather than taking the guesswork out of refereeing decisions, the bunker has created the biggest guessing game of all, as in: “How are they going to find a way to stuff this one up?”

Will it be a player passing the ball, continuing to run in a straight line and being pinged for obstruction, as Cronulla’s Michael Ennis was in a Ben Barba no-try decision against Newcastle in Round 20? (A ruling commentator Gary Belcher described as “horrible”).

Michael Jennings scored the Game III match-winner from an offside position. Picture: Mark Evans

What about allowing Penrith to get away with forming a wall around Peter Wallace so he could kick the winning field goal against the Raiders in Round 9?

Or how about … actually, you know what? Let’s forget anything that happened before Monday night and the Burgess ruling because that really is the all-time Hall of Fame worst decision of the video replay age.

The men in the bunker might make a decision just as bad sometime down the track, but they won’t ever make a decision that is worse.

The only thing that can change is the timing. Two plodders trying to keep their unlikely final-eight chances alive on a wet Monday night is one thing. Two premiership contenders going toe-to-toe in extra time on Grand Final day is another.

Come on Todd, bite the bullet. Admit you were wrong and close it down. Before you hit an iceberg.