While Adam Gee is taking the heat in this and deservedly, there are supposed to be two people in the bunker from what I understand.
"For each match of the NRL season, one Review Official and a Senior Review Official will oversee the decision review process in the Bunker. The Review Official will be responsible for making a decision recommendation to the Senior Review Official who makes the final call."
The Bunker is powered by a world class fibre network to improve the decision review process.
www.nrl.com
I think Annesley, as the head honcho, has to take a lot of the responsibility as well.
I would hate to be a referee in this day and age where you will be scrutinized and critiqued on nearly every small decision you make. And it will be done publicly and almost instantaneously, by a range of people, from ones who know what they are talking about through to idiots who don't even understand the rules.
The 'integrity' of the game under Annesley has been allowed to be eroded away at a point in time where the very opposite should be occuring. There are certainly grey areas that occur in league that are going to cause potential controversy when they aren't ruled how you see them or want them to be called. Annesley has made this worse by defending certain interpretations, making up things on the fly like his explanation on the crack down on lifting tackles (
RTS sin bin), confusion with fans and I'm assuming officials with a lack of communication when implementing and tweaking interpretations (disruptor plays), a perceived ass covering of officials rather than accountability. But in instances like the
TMM tackle it is incredibly hard for fans to understand how it was missed when every person watching came to the correct conclusion either live or after the first replay. The fact it was at such a crucial time of the game exasperates the situation. I'm not so interested in saying whether this did or didn't cost us the game. There is always so many other things that happened and could have happened that affect the result. I am interested in removing howler decisions like this. It wasn't and shouldn't have been a hard decision to make.
Will Adam Gee be hung out to dry? Will Annesley take any responsibility for this?
Whether Annesley is doing a good job or not is now quite irrelevant IMO. The perception of him and his position has become untenable now and after key people in the game have spoken out, changes need to be made.