DRAGONS BLOG: Paul Gallen did not score
Source: http://news.google.com/news/url?fd=...2.aspx&usg=AFQjCNGJITfof65HJjUKhnwgNt_aGEuA7w
DRAGONS BLOG: Paul Gallen did not score
Glen Humphries
21-Jun-2010
Two things have me scratching my head about the weekend’s footy.
Firstly, how I managed to miss making a tip in the office tipping comp for the Dogs-Titans match. That was especially frustrating, given that I would have tipped the Gold Coast but my error cost me a point.
And if I finish second by a point at the end of the season I’m not gonna be happy (but realistically, I’ll probably finish in the middle of the pack like always).
The other headscratcher is why people are claiming the Sharks were dudded after the ref denied a Paul Gallen try when the ball was on the line.
Some papers are claiming ref Tony Archer effectively ended the Sharks’ season by not awarding the try (funny, I’d have thought the Sharks being crap is what ended their season).
Even Gallen himself is insistent he scored - straight after the game he had a whinge to the sideline eye and later moaned to coach Ricky Stuart.
Those papers are idiots and, as for Gallen, well I’d say he’s telling porkies. Yes, he did plant the ball on the line - but how he got it there was against the rules.
On the TV coverage during the run of play, they showed an angle from behind (which they never showed again). That angle clearly an irrefutably shows the ball near Gallen’s midsection - short of the line - with the arm carrying it on the ground while several defenders lie on top of him.
So he’s tackled, yet somehow he then managed to get the ball past his head and onto the tryline. How did he manage that? By breaking the rules, that’s how.
It was a clear-cut double movement and, rather than whingeing about how the ref dudded them, the Sharks should think themselves lucky they got to keep possession. Had it gone to the video ref, as the Sharks and their deluded fans are claiming, the result would have been a penalty to the Dragons.
Rather than being cheated out of anything, the Sharks got an advantage. So, to all those ‘‘Gallen scored’’ people - shut up, you’re wrong.
This brouhaha over nothing only serves to distract from what was a stunningly good defensive effort from a Dragons side missing more than a few first graders as well as some players backing up from Origin.
People - especially arrogant Dragons fans - may always mock the Sharks but they played pretty well on Sunday. They threw their entire playbook at the Dragons, including some left-of-centre options that you wouldn’t expect a team to try.
Yet the Dragons handled all of them (though I’m a bit dubious about the hold-up of play late in the game to get B.Moz back into position. Really, that should have been play on). Several times the Sharks quickly flung the ball from one side of the field to the other searching for a hole but one never eventuated. The Dragons simply presented a strong defensive wall and kept the Sharks out.
They did it so well that virtually the only way the Sharks could get the ball over the line was by breaking the rules.