A hit on Panthers gun Nathan Cleary well after he had struck the kick to even the scores late in their clash with Newcastle could have seen the match end in regular time.
Knights forward Lachlan Fitzgibbon raced out of the line to put pressure on the drop-goal attempt. He then ran through and appeared to make high contact with Cleary, triggering a mild brouhaha in the middle of the field.
In his weekly briefing, NRL football boss Graham Annesley said referee Peter Gough would have been well within his rights to call a three-point field goal – something not seen at league’s top level in 41 years.
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Like the eight-point try, Annesley said a three-point field goal could be awarded “if a player is fouled in the act of kicking a field goal”.
“The contact here is not heavy, it’s not even serious in terms of foul play, but it could have easily bought a penalty,” he said.
“This game could have ended before it even went into extra time.
“In another game in a similar situation, that could have been ruled a foul on a kicker after a field goal, and that could have resulted in a penalty kick right in front of the posts. Instead of your one point, you get three points.
“It’s just an unnecessary action that risks a team losing the game … it didn’t have to happen.”
The last three-point field goal was during a clash between Norths and Newtown in 1982.
But the fact the penalty wasn’t called drew the ire of league legend Phil Gould.
“He (Cleary) got clipped around the head … it should have been a three-point field goal,” he said on Nine’s 100% Footy.
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“Players that are tackling kickers after they kick the ball are doing a hell of a lot less than that and getting penalised downfield.
“He got him high … don’t tell me if that was in the first five minutes of the game and he kicked downfield, that it wouldn’t be a penalty downfield. A million per cent (it would be).
“Some of the penalties for challenges on kickers or bumping into kickers after they’ve kicked the ball are so pedantic and so innocuous.
“But in a big moment where the kicker, well after he’s kicked the … drawing field goal, gets knocked down, that should have been a penalty in front of the post.
“If they haven’t got the courage to do it then, then why are you penalising the bumps in the night during the game.”
Gould said Newcastle’s loss in that game showed it might be time for a rethink on golden point.
Save for an eight minute period after an early penalty goal, once Tyson Gamble scored the Knights’ first for the night in the 11th minute, the Panthers didn’t lead again in the match until Cleary’s field goal.
Gould said it might be time for the league to consider awarded a point each for reaching golden point.
“Newcastle didn’t deserve to walk away with nothing from that game for everything they provided,” he said.
“I think (golden point) has run its race. It’s just a drop kick-a-thon now, we don’t see much else other than drop kicks.
“Newcastle, for all their effort, went home with nothing. Teams that get beaten by 50 get exactly the same as what Newcastle got, and that seems to be the big argument behind maybe your team walking away with a point for getting the golden point.”
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