Officials penalised for not acting on Hutchison injury
SYDNEY Roosters player Drew Hutchison lay in bed in the trauma unit at Westmead Hospital yesterday as the severe repercussions of blundering match officials smashed the NRL’s image.
Long-time player agent David Riolo described the knees-to-the-back incident that broke Hutchison’s ribs, punctured his lungs and put him into the back of an ambulance at Bankwest Stadium on Friday night as ”cowardly”.
“That will do me,” Riolo said. “I’ve been a lifelong rugby league person. It was disgusting.
“If they keep this up, we’ll have no one playing the game because of injuries. It’s too dangerous if they’re not going to take proper action to stop it.”
Independent commission chairman Peter V’landys spoke of his anger and frustration over the incident, in that match officials failed to send off or at least sin bin Parramatta five-eighth Dylan Brown.
Bizarrely, Brown was put on report 20 minutes later.
“You can spend millions of dollars trying to encourage participation, but incidents like Friday night that are not acted on at the elite level puts that money to waste,” V’landys said.
“It has an effect out there on mums not wanting their kids to play.”
V’landys took personal responsibility for the failure of senior bunker official Steve Chiddy and referee Matt Cecchin to act on it appropriately.
Chiddy has been stood down for the remainder of Round 9.
The NRL’s head of football Graham Annesley and chief executive Andrew Abdo had emergency talks late on Friday after the game before standing down Chiddy, who was in charge for last year’s grand final.
A furious V’landys had called for stronger action against foul play just days before the NRL game.