By TIM GORE
IN THE 21st minute of the Brisbane-Penrith semi-final, lead referee Gerard Sutton made a very big call. It is one that, if not addressed, will have huge repercussions for how the game is played and controlled going forward.
Ben Hunt was at dummy half and fed the ball to his five-eighth Anthony Milford on the blind side. Milford held the ball up as he moved towards the sideline across the top of decoy runners, only to feed it inside to a rampaging Corey Oates.
However, instead of steaming into a gap in the Panthers line, Oates head smashed straight into Anthony Milford’s shoulder at top pace. To compound this, Milford was moving back towards him because he was in the process of being tackled by Panther Nathan Cleary. The impact was massive.
Oates smashed backwards onto the ground and the ball came free.
Panthers reserve hooker Sione Katoa picked the ball up and was immediately met by Broncos centre Tautau Moga. However, Katoa managed to get the ball away to Dean Whare who had Dallin Watene-Zelezniak with him in support. It was extremely likely that they were going to streak away for a try.
The only problem with that was that Gerard Sutton had already called a halt to play.
Sutton was in great position to see the incident and, given the massive focus the game has now rightly placed on concussion, his instinct was to call the play up immediately.
Oates was clearly in a bad way and he was duly stretchered off. Vision later in the game showed him up and about. No doubt he’ll have nursed a bad headache afterwards and you’ve got to wonder whether he’ll be cleared to play against the Storm next weekend in Melbourne.
“So what’s the problem”, I hear you ask.
It should have been ‘play on’.
The Panthers had not engaged in foul play, nor had they knocked the ball on. The ball was not dead. Katoa was completely within his rights to pick the ball up as he did and play on. All the replays – and the fact that the Panthers were awarded the subsequent scrum – support that. The ball was only dead because Sutton made it so. Had play gone on and a try been scored, the Bunker could then have checked the incident to ensure that the Panthers had not infringed or made an error.
It should have been play on.
“What!?” I hear you scream. “The bloke got smashed in the head and was in urgent need of attention! Any reasonable human would have done what Sutton did. He was spot on right and you are just referee bashing!”
Firstly, I agree. The health of the player is paramount. However, Sutton’s actions didn’t bring assistance to Oates one second faster or remove him from further danger. They only demonstrated that he is compassionate.
That compassion opened up a huge can of worms that really was best left sealed.
Sutton may now have set a precedent that play will be stopped the moment an official believes there has been a serious injury to a player. That is a reasonable concept, right?
However, are we just talking head injuries? I think we should also include compound fractures; they are very serious. Should we then not also throw in dislocations? I dislocated my knee once and I can tell you that it was very serious. What about ACLs? They are pretty serious. Now I think about it, we need to establish a full list of stoppage and non-stoppage worthy injuries ASAP.
Next we have to make sure that all our officials are very well trained to be able to identify injuries and to decide on their level of severity instantly. They also need to be able to tell when a player is just putting it on to get play stopped – those of us who remember Mario Fenech deliberately squeezing blood out of a wound to get a breather when the first blood bins came in will know how these things can get taken advantage of.
I’m assuming that these protocols will be for both attacking and defending players. Regardless of the situation, the minute an official thinks they see a serious injury they must immediately halt play like Sutton did for the Oates’ injury.
This whole idea just isn’t practical.
The existing rule is the only one that makes any sense. The play gets stopped the moment there is a natural stoppage, such as a tackle. To expand beyond that will fundamentally change the nature of the contact sport that is rugby league.
Sure, Gerard Sutton’s intentions were the best but the road to hell is paved with good intentions. He needed to stick to the established protocols.
For years officials have been coached not to stop play for injuries.
“My whole career we were told ‘you’re not doctors.’” Former NRL touch judge Daniel Eastwood officiated games between 2008 and 2014, including the 2011 grand final with Matt Cecchin and Tony Archer – the current top NRL referee and the current referees boss, who were both in his squad, as was Gerard Sutton.
“We were told by our coaches that we couldn’t be expected to determine how bad an injury is and so we had to let play go on until there was a fitting moment to stop it. All of a sudden last night that rule was broken. Advantage should have gone to the [Panthers] with play continuing. As it was there was nothing to stop the trainers getting to Oates immediately.”
Both blue shirt trainer Alfie Langer and the Broncos orange shirt trainer – who were both on the field more than not during the game when the Broncos had the ball – were with the stricken Oates within ten seconds of the incident. That wouldn’t have changed one bit if play had continued as it was quickly moving away from where the Broncos winger was lying. The next stoppage would have been no more than 15 seconds away when the Panthers either got tackled or scored.
I’m not saying that this would have changed the result. It may have, it may not. We will never know.
However, in the next game when something similar happens is the referee duty bound to immediately pull up play? And if they don’t – if they play on as they should – how should the Panthers fans feel about that?
I’m glad Corey Oates seems to be alright and it is just a game.
But Tony Archer and his men need to all sit down and figure out their protocols going forward on this because it has compounded a horrible incident with a dreadful precedent.
And that precedent cannot be allowed to stand.
