Dear Graham Annesley

[bondi.boy]

Dear Mr Annesley,

Forget everything else that happened last night and all the talk around Latrell or Robbinson's press conference, your team failed on their most fundamental and important of tasks. The duty of care referees have for the players. We see it every week, the refs stop the games for headknocks as soon as they see them which is great it sends a powerful message to the junior league refs and everyone associated, footy is important but never more important than a players well being, it sets the standard for the game across all age groups and grades. But something else happened last night...

Last night Ashley Klein played "advantage" for 54 seconds whilst Manu was on the floor and walking around in distress, what was your touch judge watching? Surely he steps in and stops the play if Klein wouldn't. The official in the bunker? In 54 seconds surely he's been able to watch multiple replays and realise there was more to that than just a high hit. It was a complete and utter failure of the trust the players, clubs & their families put into the match day officials.

Ashley Klein owes Joseph Manu and his family an apology and should not be a representation of what our game stands for, the game needs to make this clear with action. He was the one who let that game get out of control last night because he didn't take appropriate action and he is the one who failed Jospeh Manu by not stopping the game when he should have.

Perenara deserves equal blame, 1 million dollars worth of technology and he still couldn't see what the whole NRL community could in their lounge rooms? Like Robinson said, maybe it's not the job for him.

Last night was negligence of the highest level from both officials. Robinson will take the 40k fine because one of the best thinkers in the game is seriously worried about his players well being and with good reason, maybe think about the severity of that for 2 minuted before labelling it a whinge. Graham you need to stop pointing the finger at "whinging" clubs and media and realise their frustrations have been justified and this event is not isolated but rather a further reflection on the incompetence and negligence that lies in the current group of match day officials so please get off your soap box, stop telling us how the referees need someone to protect them and stand up for them because they can't even do that for the players and that's their job!

Tonight highlighted the need for real leadership, over to you now Graham Annesley.

Amen
Amen
Amen

[Juggler]

There's definitely a hierarchy. You're not gonna make it as a ref by reffing 10 games every weekend and running the sausage sizzles. Beyond a point, there's an invite only stream, which you'll only reach if you know the right people & sell yourself properly. It's a flaw in many promotion streams... selfless analysts with no interest in social climbing & self-promotion get ignored. In the case of NRL refs we need more analysts and less social climbers!

Nobody's gonna end up in the bunker unless they've gone through all those hurdles first. It's a long path, which would require a looot of work.

You are right. I actually refereed for 10 years in the juniors (not junior reps) with a number of guys who became first grade referees (each of whom were pretty competent). Getting into junior reps was very political. Once you did you kind just did what you were told and hoped someone thought you were good enough. It wasn't that way for the better ones but there were always the ones that made you scratch your head because you knew that they weren't that good. These were the ones that did favours for the people doing the appointments and ingratiated themselves with the hierarchy. I was never fit enough and it didn't bother me too much that I went nowhere.