State of Origin | Andrew Johns defends Maroons star Dylan Napa

Blues icon Andrew Johns has come out in defence of Queensland’s Dylan Napa, who was caught in the most controversial moment of the first half.

Was Napa denied a try?

A controversial call from the Bunker capped off a perilous start for Queensland as the hosts failed to trouble the scoreboard in the first half of Origin I on Wednesday night.

A particularly polarising call against Maroons forward Dylan Napa lit a fire under the home crowd in the 30th minute. The towering star pounced on a grubber from Daly Cherry-Evans that rebounded off the post.

Slow-motion vision revealed Napa failed to get a comfortable hand on the ball as it hit the turf, denying Queensland its first points of the night. You are able to ground the ball with your forearm, and the home side was confident Napa had done just that, but the Bunker decided the prop knocked the ball on.

While former NSW coach Phil Gould was adamant Napa hadn’t grounded the ball properly, Blues legend Andrew Johns was fuming, spraying the Bunker for making the wrong call.

“As someone who bleeds blue, the game isn’t played in slow motion. You play that in real time and that’s a try every day of the week,” Johns said during the Channel 9 broadcast.

Gould admitted it would have been a try back in the glory days but stayed strong on his stance it was a knock on.

“It was a try back in the 80s. But we didn’t have video referees then,” Gould said.

"That's a try every day of the week."

That's a HUGE call from Joey, after the Maroons' no-try ruling.

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— NRL on Nine (@NRLonNine) June 5, 2019

In the end it didn’t matter as the Maroons won the series opener 18-14 in Brisbane.