South Sydney are set to be spared a points penalty despite playing with 14 men on the field for up to 15 seconds during Friday night’s win over the Broncos.
The NRL confirmed it was investigating the incident, which occurred in the 53rd minute when Davvy Moale entered the field to replace Tom Burgess before the Englishman had left it.
The Rabbitohs went to make a double interchange, with Jai Arrow also replacing Junior Tatola, only for Moale to follow Arrow on to the field before his English teammate had come off.
Souths officials were seen yelling at Burgess to come from the field. The interchange official was not close to Arrow and Moale. Officials in the past have been known to put their arm out to physically stop players taking the field.
The club was aware of the blunder and admitted as much when the NRL’s ground manager spoke to them about it after fulltime. The Broncos were down to 12 men at the time with Herbie Farnworth in the sin-bin.
The NRL will review the incident in full on Monday morning, but this masthead can reveal there is no intention to deduct competition points from Souths. A hefty fine, however, is expected.
Tom Burgess turns to run from the field after Souths officials creamed at him to come off.
NRL chief Andrew Abdo was certainly unimpressed by the interchange bungle.
“It shouldn’t happen, it’s not good enough,” Abdo told 2GB’s The Continuous Call Team on Saturday.
“We need to have controls in place to make sure that it doesn’t happen again, and obviously there has to be accountability for that. There’s a full review well underway, and we’ll look to finalise that on Monday.”
Canterbury were docked two competition points when they fielded 14 players in a game against Penrith in 2009. They scored a try while they had the one-man advantage. Brisbane also lost points in 2004 when their illegal replacement, Corey Parker, who reportedly ignored two warnings from the match official not to enter the game against the Wests Tigers, did so.
“I handed my interchange card to old mate, and he said, ‘Away you go’, so I ran on to the field.”
Jai Arrow
North Queensland were hit with a $25,000 fine for a similar 14th-man offence in 2007 when they played against Canberra.
Arrow had no idea about the drama and told this masthead: “I handed my interchange card to old mate, and he said, ‘Away you go’, so I ran on to the field.”
Souths made it four wins on the trot when they belted the ladder leaders 32-6 in their own backyard.
“They have been a powerhouse side the first nine rounds, it’s always hard going up there and beating them at Suncorp, so it was good to get the win - now we’re focused on next week and Melbourne at Magic Round,” Arrow said.
Campbell Graham starred for Souths in their big win over Brisbane.Credit: Getty
Broncos coach Kevin Walters admitted his side will have to “cop a bit of medicine” after the Rabbitohs handed the ladder leaders a reality check. Brisbane started well but butchered several chances, before Souths then scored 20 unanswered second-half points.
Campbell Graham was the hero for the visitors with a hat-trick while Latrell Mitchell was influential in the second half. Bench forwards Burgess and Tatola both ran for 200m.
“We were not building any scoreboard pressure ... the longer the game went, the worse we got,” Walters said after the game.
“What they did to us, we’ve been doing to teams for the last eight weeks. It was our turn to cop a bit of medicine ... good lessons learned, get ready for next week.”
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