‘Which rule has he breached?’: NRL to look at rule change after Garrick tackle

A controversial call last week could lead to a rule change in the off-season, while the NRL has put its hand up for a refereeing blunder that cost the Rabbitohs.

The NRL will consider changing a rule to protect players after the Sea Eagles weren’t avoided a penalty for a dangerous tackle on Reuben Garrick.

Head of football Graham Annesley says there was no breach of the rules that saw Manly’s Reuben Garrick land heavily on his back after he was tackled in the air, but the NRL will consider tweaking the rules at the end of the season after officials were called out by Sea Eagles coach Anthony Seibold.

Garrick went up to catch a field goal attempt that had been charged down when he was caught in the air by Charnze Nicoll-Klokstad, with the impact forcing him to land heavily and lose the ball in the process.

Tackling players in the air is an automatic penalty if the ball hasn’t bounced, but the rules state that it’s play on if the ball has already made contact with the ground.

Reuben Garrick was upended by Charnze Nicoll-Klokstad, but the contact wasn’t dangerous enough to warrant a penalty.

It was a crucial call with scores locked at 22-all with the Sea Eagles set to have a penalty kick from in front with eight minutes to go that would have kept their finals hopes alive.

Instead, the Warriors got the ball and scored a minute later when Marata Niukore made a break and ran around Garrick who was too sore to keep up.

Manly coach Anthony Seibold was highly critical of the no-call in the wake of the game but Annesley said on Monday he didn’t think the tackle was dangerous enough to warrant a penalty even though another NRL official reportedly told the Sea Eagles that they thought the contact warranted further action.

“It's a subjective decision. He lands on his back. There are players who are tackled and land on their back in a whole range of situations, or land awkwardly,” Annesley said.

“Injury alone is not a determination of whether the rules have been breached or not.

“(Players) can get injured in legitimate tackles, so you have to look at this particular situation and look at the circumstances. Was there any lack of care taken by Nicoll-Klokstad? I don't think there was.”

Graham Annesley says the rule will be looked at given the risk of injury. Picture; The Advertiser/ Morgan Sette

Annesley said the NRL would look at changing the rule when they reviewed it at the end of the year, but warned that any tweaks would have to be carefully analysed to make sure they didn’t affect other areas of the game.

“We have to make sure there are no unintended consequences of a rule change,” he said.

“We have to change the rule in a way that is not going to inhibit some of these fantastic tries or punish players that are trying to stop these tries.

“We’ll review all the rules and if there is a way of making the game safer, we have always defaulted to that.

“(But) under the existing rule, there was no requirement on the referees to form a view that that was a breach of the rules.

“There was no high tackle, there was no late contact. He wasn't early, he didn’t get to him before he had possession of the ball. So which rule has he breached?”

The Knights were awarded a try when the ball touched the referee, but Annesley says the contact wasn’t enough to warrant a mutual infringement call. Picture; Cameron Spencer/Getty Images

Annesley also ticked off a try to Newcastle halfback Adam Clune when the ball ricocheted off referee Grant Atkins in the in-goal, but owned up to a major error by the officials that saw the Knights score on the eighth tackle of a set.

The game was in the balance at 12-4 when Daniel Saifiti scored off a kick, but only after the Knights were given eight tackles following a major miss the officials who forgot the count after back-to-back play the balls in a messy scramble near the line.

It’s not the first time a botched tackle count has led to a try this season after the Dragons were gifted four points against the Dolphins which led to the NRL promising to put things in place to ensure the same mistake wasn’t made again.

The Bunker doesn’t have the power to intervene with things like that, but the on-field officials – as well as a referee’s coach in the grandstand – should have kept track of the tackle count in a game that thankfully wasn’t decided by that try.

The Knights scored off a refereeing error, but thankfully the call didn’t decide the game. Picture; NRL Photos.

“I can’t stand up here and tell you that I can prevent refereeing errors. No one can,” Annesley said.

“You can replace me with someone else standing here on a Monday and they won’t be able to tell you they can prevent refereeing errors either.

“They are human, fallible errors and they’ll happen no matter who the referee is and who’s in the administration, but we’ve got a duty to be open about it.

“There were two quick play the balls in exactly the same spot, and that’s clearly thrown their count and they resumed one tackle too late. I can’t give you a specific answer about where it went wrong, but why it went wrong is just a human error.”

The obvious concern is that a grand final could be decided by a mistake like the one in Newcastle, and Annesley concedes the thought crosses his mind every week.

“It does concern me (that it could decide a grand final). It concerns me every week before I watch games,” he said.

“I sit there hoping and praying that everything will go well and that we won’t have issues that we need to talk about on a Monday or across the course of the weekend.

“Of course I get concerned about that in big games, and we’ve seen it in the past where it happens in big games. But generally speaking, the percentage of something going wrong is very low, but I can’t stand here and say that it won’t happen.”

Originally published as ‘Which rule has he breached?’: NRL to look at rule change after Garrick tackle