NRL made bold call to drop officials following Warriors v Eels game

Fans, commentators and even the coach blew up following a string of referee blunders over the weekend, now the NRL has taken action.

The officials are being sent back to reserve grade after a howler on the weekend.

Four officials including Chris Sutton, brother of NRL referees boss Bernard Sutton, will be dropped after a string of incorrect calls against the Warriors left the game red faced on Monday.

Head referee Chris Sutton, assistant referee Chris Butler and touch judges Clayton Sharpe and Adam Cassidy will all be sent back to reserve grade for four mistakes made in Parramatta’s 24-22 win over the Warriors on Saturday.

While admitting several mistakes, NRL head of football Graham Annesley said he couldn’t determine whether they got correct a decisive forward pass call against Roger Tuivasa-Sheck.

Tuivasa-Sheck made a break down the right wing and threw a miracle pass around the corner to find Gerard Beale on the outside who looked to stroll over the line for the match winner.

In a shock to everyone in the stadium, the referee ruled the pass forward.

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It was the straw that broke the camels back for the Warriors with Stephen Kearney looked furious in the coaches box.

The commentators slammed the refereeing.

Andrew Voss said: “Tuivasa-Sheck almost pulled off the pass of the year.”

The Warriors social media account clearly wasn’t happy with the ruling.

WHAT!? 😡

— Vodafone Warriors (@NZWarriors) July 27, 2019

Warrior coach Kearney was furious in the post-match press conference.

With arms crossed, Kearney exhaled deeply before launching to a slam of the referees.

“I think there was a bit more there that went on earlier to be honest,” he said. “I think if you’ve watched me over the past two and a half years, I’m not one for blaming, you just sound like a whingeing coach. But the penalty count is 9-1 with 30 seconds to go and then they decide to give us one.

“If they can’t adjudicate on the strip rule, just leave it alone, if they can’t get it right and it was pretty comprehensive today, just leave it as it was. I had a call during the week that were given tries last week which were no tries after the fact from Cronulla and they jump all over Roger’s play, it’s the inconsistency. You can tell I’m pretty frustrated by it all. You saw it all yourselves.

The officiating got under the skin of most people.

“As I said, Cronulla scored two tries last week that were no tries and in the back of my mind I thought it would come down to costing teams and club situations and I don’t think it will be the end of that and I think there will be decisions that cost clubs in the next few weeks given that is such a close competition so I just thought it was very ordinary. In essence, we could have been better in certain areas but our roles were made really hard tonight.”

When asked specifically about the Tuivasa-Sheck pass Kearney said there were plenty of issues with the refereeing standard.

“That came off the back of some pretty ordinary decisions that led into that,” he said. “Last week there were two forwards passes that were tries last week. I thought it was pretty line ball. On the back of a 9-2 penalty count. And the strip, get rid of it, if you can’t make a decision on it, just piss it off.”

— with AAP