Panthers get out their claws over forward pass

Penrith chief executive Brian Fletcher says the Bunker should be used to rule on some forward passes, regardless of the risk of parallax error. Fletcher made the comment in response to an admission from NRL referee boss Tony Archer that Sydney Roosters' winning try against the Panthers on Saturday night should have been disallowed because of a forward pass from Latrell Mitchell to Daniel Tupou. Science says that when an object passes between two points that are themselves moving, there is a visual illusion; that's why the Bunker isn't used for such incidents. But Fletcher told Set Of Six: "If a forward pass is going to cost you the game and all of the fans can see it was wrong, why wouldn't you try to advance the technology to get it right? People outside of the game, they can see little things that are wrong with the game but the hierarchy don't seem to see it. It's great to come out and admit you're wrong but trying to get it right on the night would be better." Fletcher believes even allowing for the parallax error, the Bunker would get forward passes right "nine times out of 10" One solution would be to put a chip in the ball and use GPS technology.

Good Knight, Brendan

At no point on Saturday did Newcastle coach Nathan Brown even suggest he let Brendan Elliott play on despite concussion because of other injuries, as some were suggesting the following day. Brown said Elliott passed a HIA test to go back on and pointed to an inconsistency between the NRL's attitude towards head injuries and the duty of care to players with other injuries. He said players with other ailments were being placed at risk by the head injury regulations. Brown, of course, had no say in whether Elliott continued playing. The next stage of legal action will surely be "I suffered permanent damage to my shoulder because my mate went off with concussion and I couldn't be replaced". All of which illustrates that body contact sport itself will eventually be litigated out of existence.