NRL Bunker official Jared Maxwell has been stood down from his remaining round 14 duties by referees' boss Tony Archer after his intervention led to an Akuila Uate try being wrongly awarded in Manly's win over Newcastle on Friday.
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Maxwell was stripped of his duties for Saturday afternoon's Gold Coast-New Zealand Warriors clash and Monday's match between Canterbury and St George Illawarra, and may yet be relieved of some or all of his round 15 duties.
Archer admitted the standard protocol in referring a contentious try to the Bunker was breached on Friday night, Maxwell telling on-field referee Ashley Klein to award Uate the try, despite the urgings of rookie touch judge Jarrod Cole to take a second look.
Video review guidelines suggest officials based in the NRL Bunker not provide any guidance to whistleblowers until a decision has been referred.
"I've spoken to him, he's obviously very disappointed, not only because he made the wrong decision, but because he breached the policy we have," Archer told Fairfax Media.
"The reason we have that is because it leads to better decision making where he's got the opportunity to review every angle.
"He's obviously made a split-second decision. It's a mistake. He's a human, he made a mistake, and ultimately he has to be held accountable for that.
"For the rest of the round he's been stood down for the rest of his appointments. I'll make decisions around next round when we reach that point in time, but we're not at that point, so we'll get through the rest of the round and make some decisions."
Uate's controversial second try extended Manly's lead to 10 points in atrocious conditions at Lottoland, before Newcastle hooker Danny Levi scored to give the last-placed Knights a late sniff of a rare away win.
The explosive Manly winger was adamant he had scored the try, despite replays showing there was separation between his hand and ball after the Newcastle cover defence intervened.
Knights coach Nathan Brown questioned why Klein did not refer the decision, given his sideline assistant is clearly shown suggesting he should.
The NRL stripped back some of the powers of the Bunker in 2017, relieving it of checking knocks-ons in general play and 40-20 kicks.
And, as part of a push for the game to flow more, the involvement of video review officials has significantly decreased this year in terms of referrals with on-field referees making more decisions without relying on the Bunker.
But the latest howler – and the chain of events – will increase scrutiny on the video review system, which many critics suggest has worked smoother this season, a view shared by Archer.
"It has improved and obviously it improves because we're better at it a year in, and also we have a stricter process around it," Archer said.
"We needed to follow that and that's what didn't happen. Overall I'm very comfortable with where it's going.
"We've made good decisions, we've made them transparently and in a timely fashion and that's been really consistent with how we've applied the rules of the game."
Sea Eagles coach Trent Barrett conceded Uate shouldn't have been awarded a try, but believed his side had another one unfairly chalked off earlier.
"We were lucky. Some weeks you get them. I thought the try before it, when he ruled 'Choc' [Uate] interfered with the catch, I thought that was a fair try and the other one obviously he dropped it," Barrett said.
"It was a bit even-stevens. Normally they do [go to the Bunker]. We'll get one one day and we'll miss them the next. I understand Browny will be very frustrated by it."
