Bunker officials can’t be dropped as no replacements: Annesley – NRL.COM

The NRL admits it needs to train up more bunker referees so there is scope to rotate reviewers more if mistakes are made.
Head of Football Graham Annesley backed the bunker personnel to make the right decision far more often than a wrong one.
But at his weekly briefing on Monday at NRL Headquarters, Annesley showed two player interference decisions Jack Hetherington (Warriors) and Jamal Fogarty (Titans); Bailey Simonsson (Raiders) and Josh Addo-Carr (Storm) where he felt the bunker made judgment calls.
For the first, he said it was a “50-50 call” on whether Hetherington impeded Fogarty.
For the second, he said Simonsson should never had been sin-binned or the Raiders penalised.
“The Bunker generally do a very good job on the decisions sent to them,” Annesley said.
“But when we come to these kinds of judgment calls I think they’re putting too much focus on individual aspects rather than looking at the incident (a) in real time and (b) as most fans would look at them.
“So I think they’re looking for too much in these incidents.”
Simonsson sent to the sin bin
However, unlike players or on-field officials who can be dropped for making an error, Annesley admitted the NRL did not have that luxury at present. There are not enough people trained up to perform the detailed work needed.
“To be brutally honest with you no we don’t at the moment,” Annesley said, when asked if bunker reviewers should be stood down for a week if they make a mistake.
Raiders coach Ricky Stuart had said it was no good complaining about video decisions because the same people would be back next week. And he’s right.
At present there are only three qualified: Jared Maxwell, Steve Chiddy and Steven Clark, who are all retired from on-field officiating.
“One of the reasons for that is that it’s a very specialised role they’re dealing with camera angles, technicians, referees on the field,” Annesley said.
“They are effectively managing their own little television production to make sure they get quick access to the best angles; they are operating under pressure because everyone is waiting for the decision.
“There are very few people trained for this role. In the past few years we had the luxury of having some of our main first grade referees being also

Click here to view the original article.