But early in the second half with the match locked up at 12-all, a pivotal moment would soon draw widespread confusion after Nicholls was pulled up by the bunker when he recovered the ball from Stephen Crichton on a kick return.<\/p>\n
The bunker had found Nicholls in breach of a 'downtown' offside – a scenario in which players who are in front of the kicker can not advance past the point of the previous play-the-ball until the ball has passed the offside players.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The rare stipulation left Bennett baffled at full-time, ruing what might have been had the bizarre ruling not reared its head.<\/p>\n
"I'm a little bit dumbfounded by that one," Bennett told reporters at his post-match press conference.<\/p>\n
"It might have been, but as Mark said he's done it all his career. So many others have. So, I just don't know where it's come from.<\/p>\n
"No one has any idea in that changeroom. No one could believe it. So many of them are all guilty of it. It was a big moment in the game, there's no doubt about that."<\/p>\n
![\"NRL](\"https:\/\/vms-network-images-prod.s3-ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com\/2021\/08\/376353\/pickerimage.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
NRL guru Phil Gould was equally bemused by the bunker's interference.<\/p>\n
"Mate, don't start me. By the letter of the law, maybe. But you see that happen a thousand times. Crichton will run 20 metres with the ball, he's way outside 10 metres," Gould told Nine's Friday Night Footy post-match coverage.<\/p>\n
"I think it's a really technical penalty at that stage of the game that really didn't need to be blown, but the bunker interfered. Eye in the sky, got ya. Like a highway patrol with a speed gun. It was an unnecessary technical penalty. Unnecessary for the penalty to be blown."<\/p>\n
That was a sentiment echoed by Sharks legend Paul Gallen.<\/p>\n
![\"Cleary](\"https:\/\/vms-network-images-prod.s3-ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com\/2021\/08\/376346\/pickerimage.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
"It was a tough call for the South Sydney side," he said.<\/p>\n
"Technically, it's a penalty but I do feel a bit sorry for them. I always thought downtown you had to be in front of the play the ball before the ball was passed out of dummy half. It is a tough one, a technical penalty. You can't say it was match-defining, but it was tough."<\/p>\n
For a daily dose of the best of the breaking news and exclusive content from Wide World of Sports, subscribe to our newsletter by clicking here!<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Rabbitohs coach Wayne Bennett says he's "dumbfounded" by a technical 'downtown' call on forward Mark Nicholls which spoiled a threatening play for South Sydney with […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117228"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=117228"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117228\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":117230,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117228\/revisions\/117230"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=117228"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=117228"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=117228"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}