YOU BLEW IT, SHAYNE
NSW - Blues Opinion QLD - Maroons
May 29, 2014
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THE brutal nature of last night’s opening Origin game means a number of the stars will be missing from Game Two. And referee Shayne Hayne should be a non-starter as well after his sub-standard display at Suncorp Stadium.
The longer the game went, the better the players got and the worse Hayne got.
And don’t worry about the other ref, Ben Cummins, he was a virtual passenger as the senior man Hayne made all the big calls.
Consider these clangers when you’re weighing up Hayne’s claims to the whistle for Game Two:
Queensland’s opening try of the night came after a Brent Tate knock on going for a high ball was missed and Qld were wrongly given a scrum feed. (Some help from the touch judge would be nice!);
Josh Papalii’s cheap shot on Paul Gallen well after he had passed the ball and with his back turned didn’t even earn a penalty. And Beau Scott produced a similar hit on Billy Slater late in the match and got away with it;
The knock on call against NSW in the dying seconds to give Queensland one last shot was just plain wrong;
The penalty against Michael Jennings for tackling Justin Hodges without the ball a few minutes earlier was a shocker;
In the first half Mr Hayne stopped play to allow Brent Tate to be taped up because he was bleeding. In the NRL, trainers are told to take players out the back and tend to them while the play continues but Hayne inexplicably stopped the game last night and took all the momentum away;
Jarryd Hayne should have been penalised when he flew through the air just after half-time and made no attempt to catch a bomb but simply put Billy Slater off.
Mercifully, there were very few penalties blown, which allowed a magnificent contest to flow but that’s about the only positive I can find in the performance by Shayne Hayne, who should find himself watching from the grandstand at ANZ Stadium in three weeks’ time.
Nobody wants to see a massive game like Origin decided by dud refereeing so let’s give someone else a crack in Sydney and hope the clangers can be avoided.
