Referees boss Bill Harrigan bristled at questions over the quality of officiating in the NRL finals series on Tuesday, while announcing Ben Cummins and Tony Archer as the two whistle-blowers in charge of Sunday’s grand final.
Referees have come under increasing scrutiny in 2012 following a series of blunders, which has reached a crescendo in the past two weeks with two howlers in which tries were incorrectly awarded.
Cummins will be taking charge of his first grand final when Canterbury take on Melbourne at ANZ Stadium, while Archer is lining up for his sixth.
But while the focus of fans, coaches and players is on the howlers, Harrigan wasn’t prepared to look back.
“Coming into this game my focus is just on this game, what’s happened in the past and that is left behind now,” Harrigan said on Tuesday.
“I’m focusing on this week, making sure that the referees are prepared as well as they can be and the video referees are prepared as well as they can be.”
In the past fortnight Harrigan has been forced to admit controversial tries to Manly’s Michael Oldfield and Melbourne’s Billy Slater should not have been awarded by the video referee – who were dumped for the errors in both cases.
But when pressed on whether there could be any guarantees that similar blunders would be avoided this weekend, Harrigan was noncommittal.
“I’m not looking back, I’m looking forward to this week and preparing these guys as best as we can,” he said.
“I can guarantee that they’re working hard to make sure they go out there and try not to make mistakes.”
Former grand final referee Shayne Hayne has surprisingly been moved into the video referee box for the first time this year, where he will be the junior partner to Chris Ward.
“As you saw in the games leading into the semi-finals I had first-grade referees there as the back-up, and after Shayne missed out on this appointment I thought it was a good idea to put him up in the box behind Chris Ward,” Harrigan said.