Referee howler has major impact on NRL finals race as Sharks edge Dragons
Cronulla has jumped into eighth spot on the NRL ladder after a contentious call helped seal a narrow win over the Dragons — and the result could have major ramifications for the playoffs.
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When the NRL bunker kicked off at the start of the 2016 season, Todd Greenberg’s promise was it would get rid of the howlers.
Well, here we are at the back end of the 2019 regular season and the same old problems continue to cause massive headaches in the countdown to the finals.
In stunning scenes at Pointsbet Stadium, another controversial call catapulted Cronulla back into the top eight after an 18-12 win over arch rivals St George Illawarra.
And while the Dragons season is already dead and buried, it has the potential to have a huge impact on the hopes of several other sides.
The Sharks got home on the back of a 76th minute try to Bronson Xerri after what appeared a clear knock-on from Wade Graham.
While senior bunker official Jared Maxwell supported the onfield “try” call, former leading referee Bill Harrigan said on Triple M that he had no doubt one replay in particular absolutely highlighted the wrong call was made.
Graham conceded: “It clipped my arm. I don’t know if it went forward, it is hard to see on the screen. Sometimes you get them, sometimes you don’t.”
What it means is the Sharks jump to 22 competition points to leapfrog Penrith on point differential, while it leaves Newcastle and Wests Tiers back on 20 points and the Warriors on 19 with three rounds remaining.
Like Harrigan, Dragons coach Paul McGregor had no doubt Graham knocked on but he was more upset with some of the fundamental mistakes from his own players.
“It has been the story of our season,” McGregor lamented.
Sharks coach John Morris was happy to go with the onfield decision.
“The game is not played in slo-mo,” Morris said.
“The ref thought it was a try. We need to back the ref.”
But Morris admitted he probably would have felt differently if he was on the wrong end of the call.
SLOPPY SHARKS
It was hardly a clinical performance from the Sharks but at this stage of the season you take what you can get.
Despite his late lucky break, Graham caused havoc throughout the match and was clearly the Sharks’ most dangerous player.
They raced to a 12-0 lead midway through the first half with tries to Aaron Woods off a neat Jayden Brailey grubber while a Matt Moylan touch of class put Sosaia Feki over.
But there was a stack of other points that went begging.
On one occasion in particular all Xerri had to do was make a simple two-on-one offload with the tryline open in front of Shaun Johnson but they still butchered it.
Those sort of mistakes will cost the Sharks against the best teams.
“Our last month has actually been okay,” Morris said.
“A few people thought we were ordinary last week against Penrith, I was one of them. But actually we have won three of our last four. If you do that throughout the whole season you finish in the top four.”
MOYLAN INJURY CONCERN
Moylan limped from the field in the 50th minute with that problem hamstring that has hindered his season again the worry.
He will most likely miss next Saturday’s clash at home against the Warriors but Morris was hoping it won’t keep him sidelined for too long.
Moylan is such a key to the Sharks’ attack they simply can’t afford for him to be out for any length of time at this late stage.
DRAGONS’ DESPAIR
McGregor could have quite easily unloaded on the match officials but given the amount of mistakes his players made what was the use.
Luciano Leilua was the Dragons’ best.
The young Dragons powerhouse moved from the second row into the halves when Ben Hunt was forced off with concussion and Leilua set up a thrilling finish when he levelled the scores at 12-all in the 64th minute with a determined charge.
A pretty ordinary afternoon for Hunt ended just four minutes into the second half when he got smacked in the face with a stray boot from young teammate Jackson Ford.
Hunt was one of three players lost to concussion including Tyson Frizell and Patrick Kaufusi.
There was certainly no lack of effort but as McGregor pointed out “there is no excuse” for some of the fundamental errors.
“Young or old, you have just got to be better than that,” he said.
CRONULLA 18 (S Feki A Woods B Xerri tries S Johnson 3 goals) bt ST GEORGE ILLAWARRA 12 (J Ford L Leilua tries G Widdop 2 goals) at PointsBet Stadium. Referee: Jon Stone, Adam Gee. Crowd: 13,652
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Originally published as Referee howler has major impact on NRL finals race as Sharks edge Dragons
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