Footy great Andrew Johns has led a chorus of criticism against the NRL and rugby league officials after 18 players were sent to the sin bin this weekend.
A large majority of those yellow cards related to players making high contact, with Johns lashing out at the bunker review system claiming that it was not being used correctly.
On Sunday, Johns was calling the Wests Tigers dramatic golden point 20-18 victory against Cronulla Sharks, but prior to the match, the former Newcastle and Warrington Wolves half-back had berated the ‘farcical’ overuse of the sin bin over the weekend.
In the 64th minute of the game though, Tigers star Fonua Pole became the latest player to be handed a time-out this weekend, following a tackle on Cronulla’s Tom Hazelton.
And Johns was shocked by the decision.
‘Don’t tell me, that’s it?’ he said to Channel 9.
Footy great Andrew Johns has lashed out at the NRL after 18 players were sin binned this weekend, with a large propotion of them being related to high contact
Andrew Dillon admits that work must be done to improve the bunker review system
In fact, the former Dally M Medallist was so furious over the call that he put down his microphone in protest and did not participate in commentary for the final 23 minutes of the match, according to The Daily Telegraph.
He offered only a short response to co-commentator Matt Thompson when posed a question on the golden point.
Sources close to the situation said to The Sydney Morning Herald that this wasn’t the first time that Johns had put down his microphone in frustration over an on-field incident.
The outlet adds that Johns had called ARLC chairman Peter V’landys on Monday to vent about the increase in sin bins this weekend. V’landys is understood to be in regular contact with Johns relating to incidents taking place in the sport.
Prior to the match, Johns had claimed that the increase in players being sent to the sin bin due to high head contact was becoming ’embarrassing’.
‘The breakdown of this sending players to the bin is absolutely farcical,’ he told Nine’s Sunday Footy Show.
‘It’s gone beyond a joke. It is embarrassing. The over analysis and the overreach of the bunker in play … the bunker should be used only for try-scoring opportunities unless it’s a send-off.’
Johns isn’t the only former player concerned by the NRL’s recent clampdown on high contact, with Corey Parker equally expressing concerns over the consistency of the decisions.
Siosiua Taukeiaho (second from left) was sent to the sin bin during the Sea Eagles game against Penrith
He used the example of Sitili Tupouniua who was allowed to stay on the field after lifting his knees and making contact with Brendan Piakura’s head, as the Bulldogs star ran into a tackle during their defeat by the Broncos on Thursday.
‘There’s an intent to lift his knee and there is absolute force, and he hits Piakura,’ Parker said on SEN.
‘The referees make a decision that that’s not OK and we’ll give a penalty to the Broncos and take the ball off you.
‘If they (the NRL) are fair dinkum and you have a bunker… then that there is a send-off every day of the week.
‘Whether you agree with it or not, the intent to lift your knee and to hit someone in the head is not OK.’
Parker admitted his bewilderment over how inconsistent the NRL have handled cases like this. Tupouniua is now facing a hefty suspension after the incident.
‘Right then and there, they didn’t do a thing so Sitili Tupouniua stayed on the field,’ he said.
‘Further on, he gets charged with a grade two contrary contact charge after the game, but nothing was done (on the field).
But Johns has called the NRL’s clampdown ’embarrassing’ and ‘farcial’. In protest to their stricter rules on head contact, he did not commentate for the final 23 minutes of Sunday’s match between the Wests Tigers and Cronulla Sharks
Tigers star Fonua Pole (pictured) had been sent to the sin bin during the match, with Johns being incensed by the decision
‘If that hit him in the jaw or the side of the temple, for example, then we’re talking about a completely different story.
‘Yet we see from the NRL when someone grazes the nose of somebody that he’s spending 10 in the bin.
‘It just does not add up.
‘If you’re sitting there as a father and you’ve got a couple of kids alongside you and they see player A leave the field for a high shot and you explain to your children that it’s not OK and they’re trying to stamp it out.
‘And then you see Sitili Tupouniua raise the knee which is a terrible act and he stays on the field. If your kids ask why he stays on the field, you’ve got absolutely no answer.
‘It’s a real challenge for the NRL at the moment, and they need to make a stance.’
But the NRL are showing no signs of backing down on the matter, with some expressing concerns that the stricter approach to high contact could hamper this weekend’s Magic Round.
While admitting the bunker review system had made mistakes in the past and needed a rework, NRL chief executive Andrew Abdo has called on players and clubs to improve their discipline.
Latrell Mitchell also landed himself in hot water this weekend for an ugly tackle on Sua Fa’alogo
‘Well, I think it’s a collective responsibility in the game, right?’ he said.
‘It’s an incredibly hard job because you’re looking at a very technical game played at speed. The adjudication in a sport such as ours is never going to be an exact science.
‘There’s always going to be areas of judgement. I think we also need to accept that – we need to do better and we will. Hopefully, we’ll see that playing out in the next couple of rounds.
‘We also don’t want to see the incredible increase in high tackles that we’re seeing at the moment.
‘As a game, we’re not going to take a backward step on player safety and protecting players. Equally, we also want a game that flows and I get the frustration around the stop-start nature of too much intervention, particularly the use of technology.
‘So we’re going to think about that and adjust accordingly.’
Meanwhile, Graham Annesley, the NRL’s head of football, has warned that the league will not be making a U-turn on the strict rules on high contact.
Interestingly he told NewsWire that there ‘hasn’t been a crackdown.’
Rugby League chief Graham Annesley has warned that the league will not be making a U-turn on the strict rules on high contact
‘There was no new policy, there was no new directive. It was just that there were a number of misses that should have been acted upon, and we didn’t want it to be seen that it was the new standard,’ he said.
‘We understand that it’s frustrating for fans and players to see the game stopped for a prior incident, and then a player gets sent to the sin bin,’ he said.
‘These incidents where the bunker intervenes for something that happened a number of tackles previously, we understand that it’s disruptive to the flow of the game and it’s frustrating. We get that.
‘But by the same token, we have to make sure that we are always protecting players wherever possible.
‘When we go back to a previous play, we have to make sure that we’re only doing it for the most serious of incidents.
‘If there’s no question that a player should not remain on the field after a tackle that’s been missed by the match officials, then that player deserves to go to the sin bin.
‘But if we get any marginal incidents where the player could be placed on report for the incident rather than stopping the game, then we need to be better at that.’
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