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NRL regrets six-again blunders

Dragon players celebrate winning the round 16 NRL match between the St George Illawarra Dragons and the Canberra Raiders at WIN Stadium, on July 03, 2022, in Wollongong, Australia. (Photo by Mark Nolan/Getty Images)

Graham Annesley has declared the NRL won’t ditch the six-again rule despite three blunders in Canberra’s loss to St George Illawarra.

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NRL head of football Graham Annesley has defended the six-again rule despite conceding Canberra could have been awarded three penalties rather than fresh sets in the last 20 seconds of their 12-10 loss to St George Illawarra.

The Raiders were attacking the Dragons’ line in search of a late try on Sunday when St George Illawarra captain Ben Hunt was guilty of three infringements.

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The first two calls – an offside and a flop on prop Joe Tapine on the penultimate play of the game – were rewarded with six-agains by referee Peter Gough.

The third was where Hunt was not square at marker on the last play of the game and he rushed out to stop dummy-half Tom Starling.

Gough didn’t signal for a penalty and it meant the 11th-placed Raiders were cut adrift from the battle for a finals spot by four points.

A penalty would have allowed the Raiders the chance to tie up the game and send it to golden point. 

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Canberra coach Ricky Stuart claimed Gough lacked “courage” in not penalising Hunt, with Annesley conceding the Raiders could have been awarded three separate penalties.

“In most cases when you see that kind of tackle (to stop Starling) it results in a penalty,” Annesley said.

“In our view that should have been a penalty.

“There are three incidents; the offside, the flop and then there is the move around to tackle the dummy-half.

“Any of those three could have been determined to be a professional foul and a penalty and possibly a sin bin.”

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Annesley said Stuart had been spoken with the NRL’s referees department on Monday.

He also claimed the six-again rule was here to stay and said the NRL wouldn’t revert to a two-referee system.

“We think that a single referee has added a lot to the game and has allowed the game to continue,” Annesley said.

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“The six-again has been a bonus for the referees in allowing them to try and get a level of compliance with stopping the game.”

Annesley also said referee Gerard Sutton made a mistake by penalising Sydney Roosters hooker Sam Verrills for a tackle on Penrith’s Scott Sorensen on Friday.

In the 39th minute, Verrills made a straightforward tackle on Sorensen who nosedived towards the ground, earning a penalty which led to a try to Viliame Kikau on the next set.

Roosters coach Trent Robinson, whose side lost 26-18, called it a “horrible decision” and Annesley concurred.

“In the history of the game, most would agree that it is a copybook around-the-legs tackle,” he said.

“We don’t believe there is any reason why this tackle should have been penalised.”

By: George Clarke, AAP

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Flankly 1 hour ago
'Absolute madness': Clive Woodward rips into Borthwick in wake of NZ loss

Borthwick is supposed to be the archetypical conservative coach, the guy that might not deliver a sparkling, high-risk attacking style, but whose teams execute the basics flawlessly. And that's OK, because it can be really hard to beat teams that are rock solid and consistent in the rugby equivalent of "blocking and tackling".


But this is why the performance against NZ is hard to defend. You can forgive a conservative, back-to-basics team for failing to score tons of tries, because teams like that make up for it with reliability in the simple things. They can defend well, apply territorial pressure, win the set piece battles, and take their scoring chances with metronomic goal kicking, maul tries and pick-and-go goal line attacks.


The reason why the English rugby administrators should be on high alert is not that the English team looked unable to score tries, but that they were repeatedly unable to close out a game by executing basic, coachable skills. Regardless of how they got to the point of being in control of their destiny, they did get to that point. All that was needed was to be world class at things that require more training than talent. But that training was apparently missing, and the finger has to point at the coach.


Borthwick has been in the job for nearly two years, a period that includes two 6N programs and an RWC campaign. So where are the solid foundations that he has been building?

4 Go to comments
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Nickers 1 hour ago
Scott Robertson responds to criticism over All Blacks' handling errors

Very poor understanding of what's going on and 0 ability to read. When I say playing behind the gain line you take this to mean all off-loads and site times we are playing in front of the gain line???


Every time we play a lot of rugby behind the gain line (for clarity, meaning trying to build an attack and use width without front foot ball 5m+ behind the most recent breakdown) we go backwards and turn the ball over in some way. Every time a player is tackled behind the most recent breakdown you need more and more people to clear out because your forwards have to go back around the corner, whereas opposition players can keep moving forward. Eventually you run out of either players to clear out or players to pass to and the result in a big net loss of territory and often a turnover. You may have witnessed that 20+ times in the game against England. This is a particularly dumb idea inside your own 40m which is where, for some reason, we are most likely to employ it.


The very best ABs teams never built an identity around attacking from poor positions. The DC era team was known for being the team that kicked the most. To engineer field position and apply pressure, and create broken play to counter attack. This current team is not differentiating between when a defence has lost it's structure and there are opportunities, and when they are completely set and there is nothing on. The reason they are going for 30 minute + periods in every game without scoring a single point, even against Japan and a poor Australian team, is because they are playing most of their rugby on the back foot in the wrong half.

43 Go to comments
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Nickers 1 hour ago
Scott Robertson responds to criticism over All Blacks' handling errors

I thought we made a lot of progress against that type of defence by the WC last year. Lots of direct running and punching holes rather than using width. Against that type of defence I think you have to be looking to kick on first phase when you have front foot ball which we did relatively successfully. We are playing a lot of rugby behind the gain line at the moment. They are looking for those little interchanges for soft shoulders and fast ball or off loads but it regularly turns into them battering away with slow ball and going backwards, then putting in a very rushed kick under huge pressure.


JB brought that dimension when he first moved into 12 a couple of years ago but he's definitely not been at his best this year. I don't know if it is because he is being asked to play a narrow role, or carrying a niggle or two, but he does not look confident to me. He had that clean break on the weekend and stood there like he was a prop who found himself in open space and didn't know what to do with the ball. He is still a good first phase ball carrier though, they use him a lot off the line out to set up fast clean ball, but I don't think anyone is particularly clear on what they are supposed to do at that point. He was used really successfully as a second playmaker last year but I don't think he's been at that role once this year. He is a triple threat player but playing a very 1 dimensional role at the moment. He and Reiko have been absolutely rock solid on defence which is why I don't think there will be too much experimentation or changes there.

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