Sea Eagles’ halftime siren ’disgrace’ conspiracy disproved by NRL

The Manly Sea Eagles’ 28-6 win over the Parramatta Eels was the statement win the side needed to finally put its slow start to the year behind it but a moment just before halftime raised eyebrows.

The Sea Eagles scored a belter of a try though Brad Parker, with the centre at the end of a brilliant sequence that saw winger Reuben Garrick kick back on the inside.

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While it looked like the play would be extinguished by the Eels in chase, a wicked second bounce landed right for Parker to score, after the Bunker cleared him for a knock on.

But the issue came during the kick for goal.

Garrick, the Sea Eagles goal kicker, lined up the shot from a very kickable angle, but shanked the shot as the siren went off as he started his approach to kick the goal.

The Sea Eagles winger was incredulous as Manly went to the sheds at 16-6 after the miss, potentially leaving the door open for the Eels to comeback.

“The siren has gone off as he’s taken the shot,” Voss said in Fox League commentary. “He’s got every right to say that. I think that is a disgrace. You can’t sound the siren as he’s coming in to kick, can you?”

HT siren went off during his KICK!!! ?

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The Sea Eagles went on to score another two unanswered tries in a tribute to the late NRL Immortal Bob Fulton, so it was a bt of a moot point.

Conspiracy theories swirled as well as accusations of gamesmanship and the home ground advantage being used to put the kicker off, the NRL’s head of football Graham Annesley put an end to any talk of wrongdoing that may have occurred.

“Normally that would not happen,” the NRL’s head of football Graham Annesley said at his weekly briefing on Monday.

“The timekeeper’s clocks are automated so when the clock hits zero, the siren is automatically generated.”

Reuben Garrick wasn’t happy with the siren.Source:FOX SPORTS

Annesley said the potential for delay created by manually-generated sirens “could be the difference between a try being scored and not being scored”.

If a player is taking a conversion on the stroke of halftime or full-time, Annesley said timekeepers are able to stop the clock with “one or two seconds left before it gets to zero” while the kicker attempts their shot at goal, therefore delaying the siren until after the conversion.

In the Sea Eagles’ game, “It was purely that the timekeeper wasn’t quick enough,” Annesley said.

“It wasn’t a timekeeper sitting up there saying, ‘I’m just going to let this thing go off while he takes the kick’, it was an automated process.”

It likely won’t end any talk of conspiracy theories but it seems the NRL is chalking it up to a coincidence.

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