Referee co-coach Bill Harrigan answers your most frequently asked questions from Round 11 of the NRL Telstra Premiership.
What did you think of the decision to penalise Brad Takairangi for raising his elbow in the lead-up to what would have been a try to Roosters halfback Daniel Mortimer?
The video referee got this call wrong. It should have been ruled a try to the Roosters. The video referee believed that there was a raised elbow from the ball carrier in the lead-up to Daniel Mortimer crossing the line, but he got the decision wrong.
Watch the disallowed Roosters try
How do referees get assigned each week – what is the process?
The main thing that we take into consideration is that the referees are all talented enough to officiate any game week-in and week-out. As to the combinations of referees, I believe they all can officiate with each other consistently, no-matter what the pairing is.
When assigning referees we try to ensure, where possible, that the referee hasn’t officiated a certain team a number of times, or the week before.
We also try to spread the traveling between the referees, so that every referee has to travel to New Zealand, Townsville and Melbourne during the season. That means every team gets every official over the course of a season where possible.
