{"id":714953,"date":"2026-06-04T14:43:14","date_gmt":"2026-06-04T14:43:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/714953\/"},"modified":"2026-06-04T14:43:14","modified_gmt":"2026-06-04T14:43:14","slug":"nrl-2026-wayne-bennett-full-press-conference-replay-calls-out-bunker-after-controversial-call-south-sydney-rabbitohs-loss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/714953\/","title":{"rendered":"NRL 2026: Wayne Bennett full press conference replay, calls out Bunker after controversial call, South Sydney Rabbitohs loss"},"content":{"rendered":"

South Sydney coach Wayne Bennett has taken aim at the officials over a missed error at the play the ball that led to a crucial try for Manly who kicked clear to win 28-14<\/a> to celebrate Kieran Foran\u2019s new deal to coach the side for the next three years.<\/p>\n

Watch every game of every round of the Premiership Season LIVE with no ad-breaks during play on FOX LEAGUE, available on Kayo Sports | New to Kayo? Join now and get your first month for just $1<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The game was in the balance at 10-8 when Manly\u2019s fill-in fullback Clayton Faulalo sliced through to extend the lead just moments after he suffered a low-grade hamstring strain that isn\u2019t expected to keep him sidelined for long.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

But replays showed edge forward Ben Trbojevic bobbled the ball as he tried to play it, with the Steeden appearing to stick to his hand.<\/p>\n

Referee Adam Gee missed it and the bunker didn\u2019t have the power to rule on it. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe didn\u2019t play the ball properly, did he? It\u2019s as simple as that, they pay all this money for the bunker and we still don\u2019t get it right,\u201d Bennett said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe weren\u2019t playing well, so I\u2019m not going to use that as an excuse. But the bottom line is that\u2019s what they\u2019re there for.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey play the ball, they\u2019ve got to go back to the play the ball because a try was scored and that was all in the one movement. And if that\u2019s an acceptable play the ball, then the game is going to change enormously really quickly.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s gone now, I can\u2019t bring it back, so I\u2019m not going to carry on about it. The game will have an excuse for it, so you\u2019ve just got to live with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Manly get away with Burbo error | 00:37<\/p>\n

Bennett said that bunker officials should take as long as they need to get decisions right, otherwise there\u2019s no point investing millions of dollars into the decision review system.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got a bunker, it\u2019s supposed to be perfect because they expect us to be perfect,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey have all the opportunity to make a decision and to see it. And they still get it wrong.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m a fan of no bunker, I can tell you. I\u2019d rather just the game played on with life and accept it like we always accepted it.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause they don\u2019t get it right all the time, and they should, because they\u2019ve got the benefit of hindsight, and there\u2019s no time limit on their decision making.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thursday\u2019s loss was their third in a row, with Bennett frustrated with their high error count which meant their vaunted attack never got going.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not anywhere near where we should be, and we\u2019re well into the season,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe should be playing some good football and we\u2019ve gone backwards, we\u2019re not going forward at the moment. Our performances are going backwards.\u201d<\/p>\n

Foz: “They’ve played some great footy!” | 07:35<\/p>\n

Specifically, Bennett called out South Sydney\u2019s more experienced players.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe key mistakes are coming from the guys with 150 games,\u201d Bennett said. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve got young guys in that team there that haven\u2019t played a lot of NRL. I\u2019ll cop that a little bit off them. But the older players are better than that. They\u2019ve got to take some ownership of what their jobs are out there. They get well paid to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Manly\u2019s win was their eighth from 10 games under Foran and saw them move back into the top four ahead of next week\u2019s bye.<\/p>\n

It capped a huge week for the club legend who signed a new deal, had the stadium renamed Foz Pines Park for the night and even had his face superimposed on Colonel Sanders at a local KFC.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn the way here, everywhere I drove had \u2018Fozball\u2019, \u2018Foz Pines\u2019, Kieran Foran Chicken, so I\u2019m like, \u2018geez, we better play good,\u201d said Manly skipper Jake Trbojevic.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was a lot going on but it was a really good performance.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"South Sydney coach Wayne Bennett has taken aim at the officials over a missed error at the play…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":714954,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-714953","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nrl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-national-rugby-league","tag-nationalrugbyleague","tag-nrl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/714953","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=714953"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/714953\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/714954"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=714953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=714953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=714953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}