'It drives me mad': Phil Gould slams NRL referees for botched Tom Trbojevic forward pass call
League great Phil Gould has unloaded on NRL referees for focusing too much on tries that could be disallowed due to marginal decisions in the wake of the Tom Trbojevic blunder on the weekend.
Gould's comments came after a controversial play late in Manly's defeat against Parramatta, where a last-minute Sea Eagles try was disallowed due to a pass from Trbojevic being ruled forward prior to Rueben Garrick crossing the try line.
The NRL later admitted that the Sea Eagles had been robbed, with the league's head of football, Graham Annesley, admitting that it was "incorrect".
The former Blues Origin coach vehemently disagreed that the decision was evidence that video referees needed to be added in order to adjudicate line-ball decisions, but revealed his major gripe with the officials in today's game.
Tom Trbojevic and the Manly Sea Eagles were left in disbelief after the last-minute try was disallowed Getty
"Just teach the bloody referees the rules. No more referees and no more video referees," Gould told 100% Footy.
"It's a 50-50 call, that happens. If it happened in the first minute, we wouldn't be talking about it.
"What I say about our referees is they've got to get out of this habit of looking for the one percent chance that it's a no-try.
"It doesn't matter if it's obstruction or whatever, it's like they're trying to find something no one else is seeing, it drives me mad.
"On this one percent chance that it could have been a non-try, they want to find that one percent thing, rather than saying, 'If it looks like a try, it is a try'.
Manly skipper Daly Cherry-Evans approaches the touch judge after the heart-wrenching defeat AAP
"If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and sounds like a duck, it's a duck."
Gould continued his rant on the referees, suggesting that the touch judges were ill-equipped for the job.
"The poor blokes on the sideline, they're not ready for this," he said.
"What would make him think that ball has gone forward out of the hand? I just don't get it.
"I don't understand why they're looking for that little (error), that's not the nature of the rule anyway.
"It was accentuated by the fact, which they should be taught, that Trbojevic gets hit as he passes which makes it look like the ball floats forward."
