'Very disappointed': NRL admit refs 'got it wrong' in controversial Nines thriller

NRL head of football Graham Annesley has admitted that referees "got it wrong" in St George Illawarra's last gasp Nines win over the Penrith Panthers in Perth.

Penrith were eliminated and lost their shot at the $1 million pre-season title after Dragons winger Cody Ramsey had his game-winning try awarded by referee Ben Cummins despite replays showing he hadn't planted any of the ball inside the touch line.

"I'm very disappointed," Annesley told Fox Sports after the game.

"You only have to look at the replay to realise it wasn't a try. The officials got it wrong, and that's disappointing.

"There's three of them out there, and between the three of them they've got to come up with the right decision. At the moment I haven't dissected it - Bernard Sutton the referees coach will do that - but ultimately they got the decision wrong, they should have got it right."

Cummins was also at the centre of the infamous 'six again' drama of the 2019 NRL grand final between the Sydney Roosters and Canberra Raiders.

"They're human, they make mistakes, this is helter-skelter football," Annesley said.

"It does demonstrate why we have video referees in the premiership proper."

The NRL Nines does not have video referee access, and Annesley said with the fast-paced nature of the competition part of the appeal, reviews would severely slow down the action.

"There's not an avenue for protesting about refereeing decisions. They're obviously out there trying to get the decisions right. There's no avenue for appeal against a mistake," Annesley said.

"This type of competition, it's a competition that revolves around continuity of play, it revolves around back-to-back games starting on time. If we had a video referee for this type of tournament, we'd probably be finishing at 3am tomorrow.

"With over 100 tries, a percentage of those would go to the video referee, that's not what this tournament is about. It's about continuity and fun and people being able to see back-to-back games.

"That doesn't diminish the fact they got the decision wrong, but they're human and they make mistakes."

Even before the decisive Ramsey hat-trick try, the play-the-ball that led to the ensuing game-winner was very close to full-time. Replays showed that Tyrell Fuimaono was in the process of getting to his feet to play the ball just as the clock ran down to zero.

Prior to the controversial referee decision, Penrith had hit the lead at 14-13 with only minutes remaining, courtesy of Viliame Kikau.

But on his 20th birthday, Ramsey spoiled Kikau's heroics to give the Dragons a 17-14 win and put them into the semi-finals against Parramatta. The youngster, who is yet to make his NRL debut, was remorseful when interviewed about the contentious try as boos rang out across HBF Stadium.

"I would've liked to have gotten it down in goal," Ramsey told Fox Sports.

"But it is what it is.

"It's a bit disappointing. I thought I got it. But in the end it's up to the refs."

Panthers star Nathan Cleary said the tough loss was hard to take for the team.

"It sucks. Losing always suck but losing like that kind of hurts a bit more," Cleary said.

"Hopefully we'll get a couple of 50-50s now during the season that pays us back for that."

Panthers' NRL Nines captain Dean Whare called for the Bunker review system to be introduced for later stages of the pre-season event following the heartbreaking last second defeat.

"Just the business end I think. The game flows when there's no video ref but especially in those big moments when you're try to make those finals and every point counts, it's something they should probably put on ," he told NRL.com.

"It does [hurt].

"I think the other team knew it wasn't a try too. It's just unlucky for our fans not to see us go further.

"Everyone was in shock. I think the crowd was in even more shock than us.

"Can't change it now, and if the video referees were in it we'd probably be training for the next game after this. "