The NRL’s Bunker has landed back in the spotlight after one of the most farcical calls of the season in the Dolphins’ 30-24 win over the Manly Sea Eagles.
With 18 minutes remaining and the score 22-all, Manly fullback Tom Trbojevic disarmed a bomb but knocked on his quick play the ball.
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It saw Manly fire off a captain’s challenge more out of hope than anything else with Bunker official Gerard Sutton finding the lightest of contact to Trbojevic’s face from the Dolphins’ Jesse Bromwich.
Even watching the replay, the Fox League commentators didn’t see it until Cooper Cronk suggested it may have been high contact.
“Geez, is that what we’ve got to,” Warren Smith said of the call. “It may have rearranged a couple of eyelashes perhaps, that’s all.”
Cooper Cronk added: “Look there was contact — it wouldn’t have bruised a grape to be honest with you.”
On Nine, they had the referee audio from Ashley Klein, who said the Sea Eagles were challenging a high shot.
Cameron Smith said: “Please, please don’t penalise that.”
Paul Vautin added: “He actually fell into an open palm by Jesse Bromwich.”
But as the decision came down, Vautin erupted.
“Are you serious? Our game is finished,” he fumed. “It is finished if you are penalising that. Honestly.
“I bet you the bloke who made that decision has never stepped on to a football field. What a stitch-up.”
Manly started their next set inside the Sea Eagles’ half before getting another penalty after Felise Kaufusi put a late hit on Jake Trbojevic, allowing the Sea Eagles to take a 24-22 lead.
In the end however, a try to Jack Bostock in the 66th minute gave the Dolphins the lead, ultimately claiming a 30-24 win.
It was a disaster at the end of the day for the Sea Eagles after Trbojevic suffered a hamstring injury and left the field following the Bostock try after sliding into a cameraman on the sideline.
But post-match, Johnathan Thurston fired up, blasting the call.
“Look, we just want consistency,” he said.
“There are tons of these every game. That is a tap. There is no forceful contact. It needs to be forceful contact to the head and then that is a penalty.
“If you tap him like that, that is not forceful contact. I was dumbfounded by that penalty.
“Like Fatty (Vautin) said, rugby league has died tonight after seeing that.”
He then pointed to two moments earlier in the match, one where Bromwich was shouldered in the face, knocked on and it was play on.
He showed another clip where Trae Fuller was knocked to the ground after he was caught going up for a high ball and was clipped by Trbojevic, something Thurston called “a love tap”.
While Thurston argued that neither the Fuller or Trbojevic incidents deserved penalties, all he wanted was consistency.
Vautin took another swipe at the call when questioned after the game.
“It was embarrassing for the game,” Vautin said. “There is not one player in the last 116 years who would say that’s a penalty.
“This little tiny hand on the face, it was absolutely nothing.
“Gerard Sutton, he’s a very experienced referee, been around quite a while — I can’t see how he could find fault in that.
“That is just wrong. I can’t even talk about it, it was that bad. It was awful.”
Cameron Smith agreed it was “embarrassing”.
“There’s more contact to the face and head of other players in every other tackle than that one right there,” Smith said.
“That would literally not bruise a grape. You see Tommy is laughing, he sees the funny side of it. It’s humorous.
“He would not have felt that impact on his face or that touch on the face from Jesse Bromwich at all.
“I think we are getting a little bit carried away with this contact with the head type of stuff.”
Smith agreed with Thurston that the Bunker was inconsistent, calling for “common sense”.
Vautin said the officials needed “a feel fro the game”.
“He’s been refereeing for a long time, I don’t know if he ever played,” Vautin said.
“Not one player in the history of the game would be upset with that. It’s just wrong that it was a penalty.”
Speaking post-match, Wayne Bennett was asked whether the “bunker has lost its way”.
While he’d didn’t bite at the juicy pitch, Bennett said he “didn’t think it should have been a penalty”.
“There was no intent to ever hit him in the head,” Bennett said. “I thought he was trying to back out of it.
“There’s a part of the game where there’s always going to be contact and you’ve got to recognise that sometimes it’s accidental contact, it’s not deliberate contact.”
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