{"id":117993,"date":"2021-08-22T11:45:40","date_gmt":"2021-08-22T11:45:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=117993"},"modified":"2021-08-22T16:58:29","modified_gmt":"2021-08-22T16:58:29","slug":"bunkers-ruling-leaves-nrl-world-bamboozled","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=117993","title":{"rendered":"Bunker's ruling leaves NRL world bamboozled"},"content":{"rendered":"

It had no bearing on the fight for finals footy, but a bunker decision late in the Broncos<\/a>' 24-22 win<\/a> over the Warriors<\/a> left the rugby league world bamboozled.<\/p>\n

Teen Warriors fullback Reece Walsh<\/a> threaded a grubber into the in-goal area on the left edge in the 78th minute, before New Zealand centre Euan Aitken and Brisbane winger Xavier Coates rushed to ground the ball.<\/p>\n

But after Aitken tried to ground the ball for a try and Coates tried to ground the footy to force a goal-line drop-out, it was impossible to know from the live scenes who had won the race.<\/p>\n

Referee Matt Cecchin's soft call was no try as he referred the decision to bunker official Henry Perenara.<\/p>\n

As replays began to roll through, it didn't take long for Nine commentator Peter Psaltis and rugby league legend Brad Fittler<\/a> to be convinced that Coates had grounded the ball.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

"What a play by Coates," Psaltis said.<\/p>\n

Fittler added: "I reckon that's definitely the right hand of Xavier Coates."<\/p>\n

\"NRL<\/p>\n

But Psaltis and Fittler were then left dumbfounded as Perenara revealed his decision, declaring Aitken had grounded the ball.<\/p>\n

"What! Call in the forensics," Psaltis said.<\/p>\n

"I didn't even see where Euan Aitken's hand was. You could see Xavier Coates' giant hand on the ball! Where's Euan Aitken's hand?"<\/p>\n

While Psaltis and Fittler had no doubt Coates had grounded the ball, rugby league icon Billy Slater<\/a> remained undecided.<\/p>\n

"Even after the … replay we're no clearer on who scored the try," Slater said.<\/p>\n

After being awarded the try in controversial circumstances, the Warriors had a chance to level the scores through a Walsh conversion.<\/p>\n

But the former Bronco failed to add the extras and the Warriors lost the game, dashing their hopes of making a late run for the finals.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/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<\/em><\/strong> clicking here!<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It had no bearing on the fight for finals footy, but a bunker decision late in the Broncos' 24-22 win over the Warriors left the […]<\/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\/117993"}],"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=117993"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117993\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":117995,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117993\/revisions\/117995"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=117993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=117993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=117993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}