Is it too early in the season to be bagging the Bunker? Even when it’s right?

“What was that on halfway?” the Bunker thought to itself. “Is that an obstruction?”

Manly lead runner Jake Trbojevic had dawdled into the Parramatta defensive line, bumping into Eels replacement Luca Moretti. There was barely any contact. I’ve had heavier contact with an Uber Eats cyclist.

When the Bunker started explaining what it was thinking, though, poor old Gus couldn’t handle it. He started to melt down.

“He was never gonna chase!” Gould fumed. “He was never gonna chase! He was never, ever gonna chase! He had no intention of chasing! He cuddles Trbojevic! He was never gonna chase! No.14 was never gonna chase! He was never, ever gonna chase! He was never gonna chase!”

Just to be clear, in case you hadn’t picked up on it, Gould thought Moretti was never going to chase.

And he wasn’t.

When it comes to match officials and their decision-making, Gould speaks for many of us: he wants referees and the Bunker to apply common sense, especially when it comes to dazzling, match-turning tries being confirmed or denied.

The problem is when referees apply discretion instead of adhering to “black and white” rules, it opens a Pandora’s Box in which you’ll find an unopened can of worms.

Under the rules, it cannot be any clearer: “Block or flat runners who do not receive the ball must not stop in the middle of the defensive line.”

Jake Trbojevic stopped in the middle of the defensive line – a point grasped by Manly captain Daly Cherry-Evans.

“You understand the ruling, so you can understand it, so it’s black and white right, but those ones are really hard to watch,” the Manly captain said. “The rule is black and white, so I get it, but watching that one, it’s at the other end of the spectrum isn’t it. I don’t think he’s going to get there, so well played to him. He’s played to the rules.”

It’s easy to bag the Bunker. It’s like shooting fish in a barrel. Or criticising Souths.

In reality, however, the people responsible for the hard-and-fast obstruction interpretation are the very ones who whinge about it the most: the coaches.

“Obstruction used to be all discretion,” Annesley said. “There were no guidelines about what was obstruction and what wasn’t other than, ‘You couldn’t obstruct another opponent’. A few years ago, the coaches were very adamant they wanted some clarification around what they could and couldn’t do so they could avoid inconsistency in the application of the rule.”

That’s when terms like “lead runner” and “inside shoulder” became a regular part of the rugby league lexicon.

“Lead runners have a responsibility to not stop in the defensive line,” Annesley said. “No one’s entitled to obstruct another player who doesn’t have the ball. In order to get more consistency of how the referees were interpreting it, they came up with these guidelines.

“And, of course, once you’ve got some parameters that are in black and white, if the referees don’t apply them, you’ve got the other coaches up in arms.”

Annesley then added this: “Discretion only applies where the player in possession actually moves away from where the obstruction occurs.”

What would you prefer, sports fans? Do you want a game of vague interpretations and edicts, decided on the whim of the referee in the middle with little interference from the Bunker? Or do you want the rules applied to the letter?

If Koula’s try had been awarded, would you be blowing up like Eels coach Brad Arthur probably would have been about 6.15pm on Sunday? Or stood and golf-clapped for sanity being applied to the rules of rugby league?

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I’m happy with the black-and-white interpretation. There are enough “grey areas” in the game already, like set restarts for ruck infringements or whether a head clash is careless, reckless or accidental.

What I would like to see is the common sense that Gould covets.

For more than a century, players have been trying to win penalties by deceiving the referee, whether it’s a dive or, in the case of Benny Elias, biting your hand and pretending someone else did it.

Playing to the rules, as Cherry-Evans put it.

That’s a judgment only the referee in the middle, with a proper feel for the game, can make. And only he, not the Bunker, can do that.

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