The NRL has removed referee Ziggy Przeklasa-Adamski for round three after Canterbury were denied a try because the official obstructed Cronulla’s five-eighth Braydon Trindall.
Przeklasa-Adamski is not named as a referee for any of the NRL’s eight games this weekend, but he will act as a touch judge when the Wests Tigers meet Cronulla at Leichhardt Oval.
He will be promoted to referee if Chris Butler is unable to work Saturday night’s game.
Bulldogs second-rower Viliame Kikau appeared to have opened the scoring at Shark Park on Friday night when he received an offload from Matt Burton and stormed over the line.
However, Przeklasa-Adamski directed the try to the bunker to determine whether he had hampered Trindall’s attempt to make a tackle.
Replays revealed that Trindall clashed with Przeklasa-Adamski as he ran towards Kikau.
The bunker determined a mutual infringement, which occurs when something beyond either side’s control disrupts play, and the game reverted to the previous play-the-ball.
The try was disallowed, but the NRL’s regulations raise questions about whether the event was a mutual infringement.
“The referee is the sole judge of what constitutes a mutual infringement and whether or not play has been irregularly affected,” according to the rulebook.
“Contact between a defender and referee may not constitute a mutual infringement.”
Graham Annesley, the NRL’s head of football, said on Monday he disagreed with the match referees’ findings.
“I do not think this try should have been overturned. The referee must be anywhere on the pitch. “He can’t just disappear,” he explained.
Annesley claimed Trindall’s decision to run to one side of the referee and then cut back in-field to tackle Kikau was a defensive one, and Przeklasa-Adamski was not to blame for the incident.
“If we allow that try to be disallowed on that basis, we’ll have players making contact with the referees in multiple instances where they’ll be claiming they’ve been disadvantaged and ask for tries to be overturned,” he went on to say.
The ruling ultimately had little effect on the game’s outcome, as Cronulla won 25-6.
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