NRL football boss Graham Annesley backs referee’s forward pass call which denied the Roosters a crucial try against Penrith

Roosters coach Trent Robinson blew up after losing a crucial try to a forward pass call last Friday and the NRL’s football boss has had his say on the ruling.

NRL head of football Graham Annesley concedes the broadcast view of Sydney Roosters star Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii’s controversial no try against Penrith in Friday night’s qualifying final loss came from a ball that was “not clearly a forward pass”.

But he backed referee Ashley Klein’s judgement given he had the perfect view to make the call.

The Roosters were fuming with the decision after the game, disallowed a try and a crucial point against the Panthers when they were down 24-10 with about 18 minutes to go.

They had made a big break down the left and their rugby-bound centre was streaking away to score, only for Klein to blow his whistle.

'That's tough'

A big call goes against Tedesco as the Roosters looked set for another try 😮

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“I didn’t think it was forward, I don’t think anyone thought it was forward except for the ref,” Trent Robinson said.

“Looking at the replays and the angle of the pass, that was a big call at that moment, and you can’t get that wrong.”

Annesley can see where the Roosters are coming from, but he’s backed Klein’s call given he was in line with the pass and made the call without hesitation.

“When you look at it on the broadcast view, it’s not clearly a forward pass,” he said.

“In fact, you could argue looking at it from the broadcast perspective that it looks like it’s an OK pass.

“But the referee is right there and he makes an instinctive judgement based on what he sees. He reacts immediately and is in a good position.

“We can argue the point of forward passes, and if we went through all four games then you could probably find other passes that you could argue the point about.

“It doesn’t look forward on the camera angle, but if we had the ability – which we don’t – to have a camera in a drone hovering directly above that to give you the exact perspective, would it show something different? I don’t know.

“I’ll concede that based on the camera angle that it’s not a clearly forward pass, but you have to balance that against the position of the referee and the instinctive reaction that he committed to immediately when he saw the pass.”

Cotter puts the Cowboys back in the lead! 🔥

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The first week of the finals were largely free of any major controversy, with the Bunker earning praise around the game for a crucial call to overturn a no try that saw Reuben Cotter score for the Cowboys.

The referee initially ruled that the star lock had knocked on, but replays showed no infringement as the Bunker proved its worth a week after Wayne Bennett called for it to be scrapped following a controversial obstruction call against the Dolphins.

“It’s another example of the benefits that the Bunker does bring,” Annesley said.

“The Cotter decision was a great demonstration of the way that the Bunker worked through each of the aspects of that particular try, and there were a number of aspects to look at.

“But putting that decision to one side, if you go back and think about the number of tries we’ve had scored in the corner of games throughout the course of the season… some of those decisions would be so difficult to make with the naked eye.

“We’d be getting a lot more of those decisions wrong (if we didn’t have the Bunker).”