NRL confirms Bunker’s call in not awarding Jack Howarth grand final try was right

NRL head of football Graham Annesley says the decision to deny Storm centre Jack Howarth a second-half try was absolutely correct despite social media erupting on Sunday night that the Bunker had made an egregious error.

Grainy screen shots and replays were doing the rounds during and just after the grand final, with most people convinced they saw the ball on the ground which would have tied things up at 10-all with a kick to come.

Howarth had done well to fight his way towards the line after he received the ball from winger Xavier Coates who flew through the air and knocked the ball to his centre who was immediately hit hard by Dylan Edwards.

Referee Ashley Klein ruled that he was held up but sent it upstairs, with Grant Atkins supporting the decision in the Bunker.

Even Annesley thought that it was a try when he saw it live, but the misinformation online prompted the NRL to invite a few journalists into a room at Accor Stadium where they showed clear replays in 4K that showed Howarth’s arm was under the ball and that the colour clash was a bit of an optical illusion.

“When I saw it live, I was saying what everyone else was saying – I thought I saw the ball on the ground,” Annesley said.

“It’s only when we go back and look at it clearly that you can see the different colour between the arm and the ball.

“The ball is sitting on top of the arm, which then gets lifted up.

“They (the bunker officials) are looking at this over and over again before they announce their decision while we generally have one replay.

“We don’t have time to clinically examine it like this but the bottom line is that the decision was correct.”

Storm coach Craig Bellamy had every chance to blow up in his post-match press conference but was restrained after his side failed to create any chances against the best defensive side of the modern era.

“It is what it is,” he said.

“It went up to the Bunker and came down as a no try. It doesn’t matter what I think.

“That’s not in my control. We are always preaching to control what we can control, and that’s not in our control.”