THE referee who nearly cost the Brisbane Broncos a finals spot with a major blunder now controls their playoff destiny.

Ben Cummins has been awarded the Broncos clash with North Queensland on Saturday night just two weeks after what Phil Gould described as the greatest error in refereeing history.

Cummins has been listed as the assistant referee to Gerard Sutton but they will swap duties as the senior match official.

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Being assistant referee is a demotion for Cummins who was the senior referee in State of Origin this year.

In the Broncos’ 30-22 defeat of St George Illawarra in Round 25, Cummins incorrectly sin-binned Matt Gillett who he bizarrely thought was off-side when he was 30m on-side.

media_camera Players argues with referee Ben Cummins after a sin binning.

The error saw the Dragons surge back from 24-4 to score three tries in 11 minutes and significantly dent the Broncos’ for and against.

If Bill Harrigan or Daniel Anderson were still referees bosses it is likely that Cummins would have been dropped for his sin bin error.

The Broncos only scraped into the finals on a for-and-against record that was 13 points better than the New Zealand Warriors.

Broncos coach Anthony Griffin played Cummins’ error down following that match but Broncos officials and players were privately seething.

Cummins apologised for the error to Gillett and Broncos coach Anthony Griffin on the night and was the senior referee for the Gold Coast Titans’ thrilling victory over Canterbury last week.

media_camera Players argues with referee Ben Cummins after a sin binning.

In that game Cummins made the bizarre decision to penalise Josh Reynolds for deliberately passing the ball forward even though he had stepped out of bounds first with the touch judge raising his flag.

The Cowboys have been the victims of three major blunders in the past two years, two of those clangers ended their finals.

Thankfully for them, none of the referees who were involved in those three games has a whistle on Saturday night.

The Cowboys surged into last year’s finals on the back of six-straight wins before a seventh tackle try to the Cronulla Sharks ended their season.

It prompted Cowboys coach Neil Henry and co-captain Johnathan Thurston to suggest there was a conspiracy against the Cowboys.

The referees on that occasion were Matt Cecchin and Henry Perenara. Earlier this year the Cowboys were robbed of a win against Manly when Kieran Foran was awarded a late try despite a blatant obstruction.

That win would have seen the Cowboys finish in the top four this season.