NRL News 2024 | Dallin Watene-Zelezniak doesn’t try; Exclusive commentary by Billy Slater; Graham Annesley explanation, press conference

May 7, 2024 Vaseline stjohnson 0

NRL legend Billy Slater believes the Warriors were denied some opportunity to attempt a penalty after the drama surrounding Dallin Watene-Zelezniak’s attempt to score against Newcastle on Sunday.

The Warriors winger jumped high and was tackled in the air by Knights rival Greg Marzhew, dropping the ball as if in his attempt to score a try.

Marzhew was then penalized by the Bunker for the action, but to the surprise of the commentators, there was no penalty attempt that would have given the Warriors the lead heading into the break.

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Despite criticism of the Bunker immediately after the decision, Slater does not believe it is solely due to that system.

“I don’t think it’s a Bunker issue, it’s just a rules decision,” he said on Wide World of Sports. The Billy Slater Podcast.

“I thought it was a penalty try, if you don’t do it, score the try… it was an intentional penalty.

“It was almost a professional foul, so I don’t know how it wasn’t a 10 in the bin or a penalty attempt.”

After the decision was made, suggestions were made on comments that the NRL has a general rule that no penalty tries are awarded in kicking competitions.

However, director of football Graham Annesley moved to quash those claims on Monday.

“There is no policy from the NRL, the commission, management or anyone else that would prevent an incident like that from being considered for a penalty attempt,” he said.

“It’s still up to the match officials, it’s still up to them to decide based on what happened and of course there will never be two incidents exactly the same.

“It is not an automatic penalty attempt, there is no automatic penalty attempt, that is a matter that is open to the judgment of the match referees, in this case the Bunker.

“But there is no policy that says penalty attempts cannot be considered in this situation.”

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As for the actual decision-making process and why it wasn’t a penalty attempt, Annesley believes there was “too much hesitation” on Bunker’s part to award it.

“People will argue one way or another that of course he was going to score the try if he hadn’t been contacted,” he said.

“But the rules make it very clear that it is a decision that the referee, if the referee had made the decision based on what he saw live, or if the Bunker in a review has to determine whether a try would have been scored, could not have been flagged, had it not been for the interference in this case.

Newcastle held on to claim a brave 14-8 victory in wet conditions on Sunday afternoon.