Referees boss Robert Finch has backed Russell Smith's decision to award a try to Penrith Panther Frank Puletua despite appearing to be held up by Josh Dugan for at least four seconds.
Finch and his team reviewed all of the weekend's matches yesterday and paid close attention to the Canberra Raiders' 27-14 loss to the Panthers last Saturday.
Raiders coach David Furner was perplexed when video referee Smith awarded the Puletua try, but Finch said the decision was correct.
''All the video referee can do is that if the ball goes down and touches the ground it's a try,'' Finch said. ''He has to adjudicate whether it's on the ground or not, and quite clearly [in the Dugan and Puletua case] it was a try.
''The video referee doesn't hear when or if the whistle blows or if someone calls held.
''He gets the feed and if he sees the ball on the ground it's a try.
''Unless it's an outrageous amount of time, but he [Puletua] was still fighting to get it down.''
Furner also raised concerns about the Panthers being allowed to ''flop'' on his players while defending.
Finch conceded the Raiders could have been awarded some penalties, but said Canberra made a similar number of infringements that were not picked up by the on-field referees.
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