‘Crazy, incredible’: NRL erupts over wild Magic Round opener

The Canberra Raiders have continued the Bulldogs’ awful Magic Round record, surviving a wild grandstand finish at Suncorp Stadium.

What a wild finish. Photo: Fox Sports

The NRL’s fourth Magic Round has kicked off with a bang as Canberra Raiders survived a 34-30 thriller against the Canterbury Bulldogs.

The match had nearly everything including some major controversy that made the scoreline even tighter down the stretch.

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The result now sees the Raiders claim a 3-1 record in Magic Round matches, while the Bulldogs have yet to taster victory at the Suncorp Stadium festival round.

The match looked essentially over at 34-24 with just under four minutes left.

But the grandstand finish was set up when the Raiders chance to put the game to bed was denied.

A pass from the Bulldogs’ Reed Mahoney fired into the Raiders’ Jack Wighton’s head and after being toed forward, with Xavier Savage seemingly racing away for his second try of the night.

However, the footy world was baffled as the referee came up with a knock-on.

“It came off Jack Wighton’s head,” Warren Smith yelled.

Corey Parker added: “The Raiders are blowing up deluxe.”

After watching the replay, Parker said: “Oh no, it’s got him plumb, straight on the forehead.”

Look ref, no hands. Photo: Fox Sports

The Daily Telegraph’s Phil Rothfield questioned the call, tweeting: “We use bunker for everything except tries disallowed from blatant refereeing blunders”.

But the decision stood and off the scrum win, Burton kicked forward, passing to Hayze Perham, who was tackled without the ball by Ata Mariota.

Referee Chris Sutton sent the decision upstairs and said it was “simultaneous”.

However, the replay showed that Perham had been hit before he touched the ball.

“What a crazy, incredible 60 seconds we’ve seen,” Smith said.

“He’s about to grab the ball and fall over the line.”

Even Ricky Stuart thought it was a penalty try. Photo: Fox Sports

This game has been WILD.

The referee awards a penalty try to the Bulldogs.

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While Perham was still 5m out from the line, the Bunker awarded a penalty try, making it a 34-30 ball game.

The Raiders were disallowed another try when Hudson Young was deemed to have stripped the ball in a two-on-one tackle.

But despite the penalty, the Bulldogs couldn’t snatch a matchwinner, with Jordan Rapana defusing a huge Burton bomb on the full-time siren.

In fairness, the Raiders should have won by more.

On top of the two disallowed tries above, there was also a 49th minute try which was disallowed when Wighton was pinged for forward pass when he put Emre Guler over.

“It could be an illusion here,” Parker said at the time. “It’s the fact he passes from the inside.”

Smith said because he was moving backwards and passing from behind, it was “an optical illusion”.

Wighton was denied for this in a tight call. Photo: Fox Sports

Post-match, Ricky Stuart said his side was the “far better team” and had two tries disallowed at the end of the game.

“He’s got a tough job Chris,” Stuart said. “But two tries I thought were tries tonight would have shown that we were the far superior team.”

Bulldogs coach Cameron Ciraldo said was not happy with his side at full-time, saying his side had “too many people not doing their job”.

“I thought the scoreboard flattered us,” Ciraldo said.

“The fact that we still had a chance to win it at the end … we didn’t deserve that. We didn’t really nail it at the end when we had a chance either.

“I thought the Raiders were a much better side than us, they out-competed us in every area and we just didn’t stick to the plan, the style of game we wanted to play, right from the first whistle.

“So yeah, really disappointed.”

Originally published as ‘Crazy, incredible’: NRL erupts over wild Magic Round opener