{"id":836843,"date":"2026-08-01T01:48:13","date_gmt":"2026-08-01T01:48:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/836843\/"},"modified":"2026-08-01T01:48:13","modified_gmt":"2026-08-01T01:48:13","slug":"andrew-johns-calls-for-22m-change-after-controversial-call-robs-storm-of-nrl-finals-spot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/836843\/","title":{"rendered":"Andrew Johns calls for $22m change after controversial call robs Storm of NRL finals spot"},"content":{"rendered":"

Andrew Johns<\/a> has echoed Cameron Smith in calling for changes to the $22 million NRL<\/a> Bunker after a controversial call that went against the Melbourne Storm on Friday night. The Storm were all-but ruled out of playing finals this year after a 36-22 loss to the surging Bulldogs.<\/p>\n

But the match swung on a controversial call from the Bunker in the 61st minute that many believed was wrong. With the Storm leading 22-20 at the time, the Bunker ticked off a try for Josh Curran despite Jethro Rinakama appearing to knock-on in the lead-up.<\/p>\n

\"Andrew<\/p>\n

Andrew Johns wants changes after the controversial moment in the Bulldogs and Storm game. Image: Getty<\/p>\n

Replays showed the ball hit Rinakama’s arm before travelling forward into the shoulder of Siulagi Tuimalatu-Brown. The Bunker deliberated for over three minutes before finally deciding there wasn’t enough clear evidence to overturn the on-field decision of try.<\/p>\n

From there the Bulldogs scored two more tries to bury the Storm’s chances of playing finals this year. Craig Bellamy’s side are now six points adrift of the top-eight in 12th place with just five games remaining.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The ball appeared to hit the Bulldog’s arm and travel forward into the Storm player. Image: Channel 9<\/p>\n

Speaking on Channel 9, Johns was actually in the minority who believed it was the correct call. But the NRL Immortal bemoaned the fact it took over three minutes of replays to come to a decision.<\/p>\n

“It drives me crazy,” Johns said of the drawn-out process. “There has to be a conversation of how we use the Bunker. What was it? Three minutes and 10 seconds?<\/p>\n

“In rugby league we like to put down other sports for being stop, start, stop, start. The game flows (supposedly)\u2026the game isn’t flowing.”<\/p>\n

\"\"NRL world slams controversial call against Storm<\/p>\n

It comes after Smith called on the NRL to ditch the Bunker<\/a> completely after an incorrect call went against Queensland in the State of Origin decider. On Friday night, Michael Ennis, Greg Alexander and Cooper Cronk all disagreed with the call that dudded the Storm.<\/p>\n

“I thought it came off Rinakama into the Melbourne Storm player,” Alexander said on Fox League. “That’s why it went backwards. It’s very hard to tell whether it made contact with him. Common sense says it has to and it has to ricochet back to the Bulldogs player who has behind him.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Andrew Johns has echoed Cameron Smith in calling for changes to the $22 million NRL Bunker after a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":836844,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[48257,64,63,4026,3193,35633,79830,4466,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-836843","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nrl","tag-andrew-johns","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-bulldogs","tag-cameron-smith","tag-controversial-moment","tag-jethro-rinakama","tag-melbourne-storm","tag-national-rugby-league","tag-nationalrugbyleague","tag-nrl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/836843","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=836843"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/836843\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/836844"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=836843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=836843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=836843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}