{"id":52145,"date":"2025-09-30T13:54:11","date_gmt":"2025-09-30T13:54:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/52145\/"},"modified":"2025-09-30T13:54:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-30T13:54:11","slug":"reece-walsh-incident-back-in-spotlight-as-referee-for-broncos-storm-grand-final-confirmed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/52145\/","title":{"rendered":"Reece Walsh incident back in spotlight as referee for Broncos-Storm grand final confirmed"},"content":{"rendered":"

Grant Atkins has taken Ashley Klein’s mantle as the top referee in the NRL<\/a> after he was named to control Sunday night’s grand final between the Melbourne Storm and Brisbane Broncos<\/a>. Klein has refereed two of the last three grand finals, as well as every game in the last four State of Origin series.<\/p>\n

But reports began circulating last weekend that Atkins would get the nod. The NRL confirmed that Klein had been overlooked for the on-field role on Tuesday, but he will serve as the Bunker official for the decider. Chris Sutton and David Munro are on touch-judge duties.<\/p>\n

\"Ashley<\/p>\n

Ashley Klein (L) has lost the NRL grand final refereeing role to Grant Atkins (R). Image: Getty<\/p>\n

Klein went into the finals series as the game’s top ref, but has been involved in a controversy-plagued month. He copped plenty of backlash for sending Hudson Young to the sin-bin<\/a> in the qualifying final between the Broncos and Raiders, after Reece Walsh retaliated to some sledging by head-butting Young.<\/p>\n

\"Ashley<\/p>\n

Ashley Klein copped widespread criticism for sin-binning Hudson Young. (Photo by Mark Nolan\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

NRL fans and commentators were gobsmacked that Young was binned, with the majority believing only Walsh should have been given his marching orders. The NRL later backed Klein’s decision to sin-bin Young, but said he was wrong to award the penalty to the Broncos after Walsh’s head-butt.<\/p>\n

Ashley Klein’s tumultuous finals series<\/p>\n

In the second week of the finals, Klein copped a withering spray from former Bulldogs captain James Graham<\/a> while in commentary for Triple M. Graham called Klein a “bottomless git” for not sin-binning Dylan Edwards in the first few minutes of the Panthers’ win over the Bulldogs.<\/p>\n

RELATED:<\/p>\n

And Klein once again courted controversy last weekend in the preliminary final when he blew 18 penalties (nine for each team) in the Storm’s win over Cronulla. It meant there was 18 minutes in the first half when the ball wasn’t actually in play.<\/p>\n

Sharks coach Craig Fitzgibbon said after the game: “I am not sooking about the ref, Melbourne were the better side hands down. But the first half was 22 minutes of ball in play. What are we doing for a prelim? What do the fans want? You want to see ball in play. But the better side won, so I can’t complain about it. Some of those calls were warranted on us, but it’s a lot for this time of year, for our game.”<\/p>\n

\"Ashley<\/p>\n

Ashley Klein blew 18 penalties in the Melbourne Storm and Cronulla Sharks prelim. (Photo by Cameron Spencer\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Grant Atkins gets NRL grand final after Panthers-Broncos drama<\/p>\n

Atkins controlled the other prelim between the Broncos and Panthers, which didn’t come without controversy. Many thought Liam Martin should have been binned for flying into a push-and-shove between Nathan Cleary and Ezra Mam<\/a> and starting a bigger melee than was necessary.<\/p>\n

Atkins let Martin off with a warning, and his overall performance has seen him rewarded with the grand final gig. It’s the first time in his decade-long career that he’ll control a grand final on-field.<\/p>\n

Speaking last week, Broncos coach Michael Maguire said he wasn’t concerned about who referees his team. “I don’t care what the game looks like, so long as our players execute what they need to I will be happy,” he said.<\/p>\n

Veteran journalist Phil Rothfield said on Triple M on Sunday: \u201cI spoke to key people at the NRL and these people have been really strong backers of Ashley Klein for a number of years, but they were really disappointed with his performance on Friday night. All Grant Atkins has to do is get a pass mark at Suncorp Stadium this afternoon and he will referee his first grand final.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Grant Atkins has taken Ashley Klein’s mantle as the top referee in the NRL after he was named…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":52146,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[22593,9687,3714,9494,44826,23491,9492,111,139,577,34186,69,13905,213],"class_list":{"0":"post-52145","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-ashley-klein","9":"tag-broncos","10":"tag-getty-images","11":"tag-grand-final","12":"tag-grant-atkins","13":"tag-hudson-young","14":"tag-melbourne-storm","15":"tag-new-zealand","16":"tag-newzealand","17":"tag-nrl","18":"tag-nrl-grand-final","19":"tag-nz","20":"tag-reece-walsh","21":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52145"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52145\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}