NRL referees boss Tony Archer has confirmed that the rule Penrith mentor Ivan Cleary described as "ridiculous" had been voted in by coaches five months ago.
Cleary was upset when referees ordered a goal-line drop-out instead of a 20m re-start after Penrith fullback Matt Moylan caught a ball before it bounced out of the field of play while leading Brisbane 5-4 late in their last-round clash.
The referee ruled that Moylan had to wait for the ball to bounce out of the field of play for it to be considered dead and earn a 20m tap.
"It was one of the most ridiculous things I have seen in football," Cleary said after Brisbane scored in the dying seconds to win 8-5.
"There's no common sense at all.
"I am not sure of the rule but for them (officials) to highlight it like that, it's a massive change in a very tight game."
Archer not only confirmed that the referee was correct but also that Cleary was among those who had voted for the rule.
"It was raised at a coaches meeting in December ... it was voted by the coaches," he told NRL.com.
Archer said the rule was introduced to allow spectacular tries such as the one set up by Wests Tigers' Kevin Naiqama a fortnight ago.
A diving Naiqama flicked a grubber kick back to James Tedesco just as it looked to go over the dead-ball line, setting up a try for the Wests Tigers fullback that has already been hailed as a contender for the year's best.
"The situation is the ball has to bounce over the dead ball line for it to be a 20m tap," Archer said.
"On Friday night Matt Moylan caught the ball before it had bounced.
"Even though both his feet were over the dead-ball line he took possession of it before it had bounced - that's a goal-line dropout.
"The rationale behind this decision is that it encourages play where you saw Kevin Naiqama tap the ball back for a spectacular try.
"If Matt Moylan was allowed to do what he did on Friday night that would prevent the ability of that play (by Naiqama) to occur."
Meanwhile, Archer said video referees had been briefed about when they can intervene in matches amid accusations of players diving or staying down to milk penalties.
Archer said he was happy how the video referees had responded in the past round.
"For the video referee to intervene in play for an offence or potential foul play, the incident must be reportable," he said.
"I reminded all of the video referees of their obligation to that.
"We saw some examples on the weekend where they were involved and some where they weren't and I thought they dealt with them really well."
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