‘Get on the same page’: NRL’s message to match officials

The controversy around Dylan Brown’s sliding knees tackle has been amped up, with NRL HQ now stepping in.

Drew Hutchison was taken to hospital after copping knees in the back. Picture: Cameron Spencer/Getty Images

Parramatta players Dylan Brown and Marata Niukore should both have been sent from the field, or at the very least sin binned, during what has been described as a “record” weekend for wild behaviour.

Only days after League Central fired a missive to all 16 NRL clubs regarding a crackdown against onfield illegalities, a staggering 14 players have been charged by the Match Review Committee — including eight for contact with the head or neck.

Worse for the NRL, its officials are also under the spotlight given two of the most controversial Round 9 incidents involving Eels Brown and Niukore, initially, went unpunished.

As a result, NRL Head of Football Graham Annesley has since contacted the code’s match officials directly and demanded they “get on the same page” as the governing body when it comes to dealing with illegal play.

Annesley said in the case of Brown and Niukore, who have since accepted suspensions of three and two weeks respectively, he would have been happy to see both players sent off in their contentious Thursday Night Football win over the Roosters.

Brown was involved in the biggest controversy after sliding his knees into Roosters No.6 Drew Hutchison moments after the playmaker had scored, an incident which saw Hutchison hospitalised with a punctured lung.

At the time, the tackle went unpunished.

Niukore, meanwhile, was found to have struck the head of Roosters superstar James Tedesco in a wayward tackle only moments earlier.

Bunker referee Steve Chiddy was stood down for the rest of the weekend and will not be involved in Magic Round. Asked last night if referee Matt Checchin would also be stood down, Annesley replied that appointments are not made public until Tuesday.

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Dylan Brown is facing a month on the sidelines. Picture: Cameron Spencer/Getty Images

Yet the NRL Head of Football stressed that when it comes to players attacking the head of rivals, the NRL will now be treating the issue with the same force it has brought to both lifting tackles and fighting.

He added that the high number of players charged over the weekend was a record.

“To the best of our memory, certainly in recent times, that’s a record,” he said. “And not a welcome record.

“(Of the 14 players charged) eight of those were for some kind of contact with the head and neck.

“So what it’s showing is that the match review committee and judiciary are taking these things seriously.

“They have reset their bar in terms of how they are dealing with these things.

“We just need to get the referees and bunker officials on the same page.”

Quizzed on the Eels incidents specifically, Annesley suggested “poor judgment” had been applied and “standard processes” were not followed.

Asked what should have happened, he said: “At an absolute minimum players should have been sent to the sin bin.

“Sending off is also something that could have been considered. And there would have been no complaints from anyone in this building if they had taken that option in one or both cases.”

Which is now the warning again being sent out.

Drew Hutchison suffered suspected broken ribs and a punctured lung after copping knees in the back. Picture: Cameron Spencer/Getty Images

“We will come down hard on these in coming weeks and months because our objective is to, as much as possible, eliminate contact with the head and neck in our game,” Annesley said.

“And people might say that’s going to be virtually impossible.

“(But) we did it with spear tackles or dangerous throws.

“You rarely see them now.

“And we’ve done it with fighting, punching. You don’t see that anymore.

“So there’s absolutely no reason why we can’t have the same impact with contact to the head and neck.

“And people might say it changes the way players have to tackle and so forth. So be it.”

On the Eels punishment, or lack thereof, he added: “It clearly wasn’t the standard we expect in terms of how things were dealt with on the field.

“The judiciary have acted and done their part and the players have accepted the decisions of the Match Review Panel.

“The real issue was the action that wasn’t taken on the field.

“Last week there was a note sent to all referees and all clubs (warning) the NRL would take a much tougher view on incidents of foul play.

“In relation to foul play, there was an instruction that any contact with the head or neck, forceful contact was to be treated more seriously than it has been in the past.

“But there was clearly a mismatch between the expectations of the NRL and the Commission and some of the incidents that we saw over the weekend.

“So we will be further reinforcing with the match officials what the expectations are and we hope to see much more alignment between those expectations and the actions of the officials starting next weekend.”

Tedesco fumes at inaction

On Friday night, a frustrated Tedesco hit out at the officiating, unable to explain why further action wasn’t taken against Brown for his sliding tackle that sent Hutchison to hospital with suspected fractured ribs and a punctured lung.

Brown’s knees made contact with the Roosters five-eighth as he crossed for a try that would later be chalked off, leaving Hutchison in agony and reportedly needing oxygen in the sheds.

Referee Matt Cecchin had several minutes to look at the incident on the big screens, while the Bunker fell asleep at the wheel as they chose not to penalise the Parramatta player for a tackle that was worthy of a sin bin, but instead put Niukore on report for a shoulder charge on Tedesco.

Brown was eventually placed on report at half-time, but no-one told the Roosters until they came back on the field, forcing coach Trent Robinson to make split-second changes to his already injury-ravaged side.

“I felt all right. I didn’t really notice that he got me in the head,” the skipper said after the 31-18 loss.

“I was more worried about Drew. I thought that was pretty bad. I told the ref straight away and they watched it a few times but they made mine a penalty which was confusing. I guess mine was pretty bad, but I didn’t feel much in the head.

“Cecchin said at half-time that he didn’t see that and that he only saw my one. I pretty much told him a fair few times that he was leading with the knees, but then there wasn’t a call on that which was quite confusing. I found that weird that they watched it a fair few times and then waited until half-time to put him on report.

“There was plenty of time to watch it and it was pretty obvious. I don’t know why something more wasn’t done at the time. It was confusing.”

Referee Matt Cecchin talks to James Tedesco. Picture: Cameron Spencer/Getty Images

Niukore also hit rookie halfback Sam Walker late and high with a shoulder charge in the final two minutes of the first half, but no action was taken.

The NRL sent out an edict to all 16 clubs on Wednesday saying unnecessary contact to the head or neck would result in sin bins or send offs, but the officials failed to protect the players when it was their turn to act.

Tedesco was calm after the game, but the NRL needs to do more to protect its players, especially given this was his first game back after copping an awful shot to the head against the Dragons on Anzac Day.

“It happened to Drew and I was the same as well and there were a few others as well,” he replied when asked if he was frustrated with the constant acts of foul play.

“I don’t know what we can do about it because you can only say so much to the ref and hopefully they make the right calls. There’s not much we can do. We can only play footy and not dwell on it too much, especially during the game.

“I try to tell the ref as much as I can and try to stay on top of it when I see something like that, but then it’s up to them to make the right calls. I don’t know what more the players can do.”

Hutchison’s injury is the latest blow for a Roosters side that has a large chunk of its salary cap in the casualty ward, but Tedesco said it’s simply bad luck and has backed his teammates to step in and get the job done as they valiantly did against Parramatta.

“It seems like every game we have someone going down with a serious injury, so it’s not easy to see and it’s disappointing as well,” he said.

“It’s hard to put it down to something. We had two ACLs last week and something like that this week. It is a contact sport, so you can’t really put it down to anything.

“When you look at our effort, they’re a top four side. I think if we played some of the lower teams then we would have got the win even though we were up against it.

“We’re missing a lot of leaders and the injury toll is growing, but it’s not the end of the world. We’re still putting in effort and the culture that we have is that we never give up and whoever steps up does the job well.”

Robinson blows up at ‘incompetence’

After the game, Robinson labelled the NRL’s referees and bunker officials “incompetent”.

Robinson refused to blame the controversy just before halftime for his team’s defeat, despite the fact many thought the Eels should have had Brown and Niukore sent to the sin bin.

But Robinson was livid at how the process played out when Brown’s knees into the back of Hutchison.

When asked if more action should have been taken on the field, Robinson could hardly contain his frustration and anger: “Well, there was no action on the field. There was no action whatsoever on the field.

“Look, I don’t know how they are going to judge that. But we couldn’t even replace Drew with a free interchange because it wasn’t even on report at that stage.

“They looked at it 10 times and they couldn’t find anything.

“And then they had all of halftime and then we run out on the field and they say it is on report now.

“They could have told us 10 minutes in so I could have changed it in the dressing room. But they told us as we were running out on the field so I had to make a split-second change.

“It is ridiculous. It is incompetent to not see that.

“A guy goes to hospital and then how long would that be? 20 minutes later they put him on report? It is ridiculous.”

Robinson said it was pointless taking his complaints to the NRL for an explanation.

“No,” he said. “They don’t need me to ask the question. They should be looking at it themselves.”

Fox League experts were equally confused, with Michael Ennis adamant Brown should have been sin-binned.

“That’s astounding,” Ennis said. “I don’t know how with all the time we had and Bunker reviews that Dylan Brown wasn’t sin-binned.

Dylan Brown wasn’t punished on the field for his ugly incident involving Drew Hutchison. Picture: Cameron Spencer/Getty Images

“I don’t know how Dylan Brown is not on report. Have I missed something? Am I seeing something wrong? He’s come in with knees. Yes Niukore needed to be put on report absolutely but surely Dylan Brown comes into question.

Greg Alexander was equally bemused: “How did the bunker or on-field officials miss the knees in the back?

“That should have been a reportable offence and the player has left the field, so the Roosters should have been able to replace Drew Hutchison with the 18th man but they can’t and the 18th man is Joseph Suaalii.”

In relation to Niukore’s shoulder charge on Tedesco, Ennis said: “That is very similar to what we saw at the SCG on Anzac Day”.

Shane Flanagan added: “That frustrates me because that could put a player like James Tedesco out of our game for a long period of time”.

Cooper Cronk believed the crackdown gave Cecchin more than enough to suffice further punishment for Niukore.

“With the new rules and the new interpretation the referees are allowed to with contact with the head, I would have thought that would have come into consideration, the way that made contact with James’ head,” Cronk said.

Robinson had every right to be incredibly proud of his team’s performance after they also lost star lock Victor Radley to a concussion injury early in the game.

The NRL deserves to come under fire after they issued an edict to all clubs during the week warning of a crackdown on dangerous contact.

Clubs were notified on Wednesday that there would be minimal tolerance on avoidable head contact this round with refs encouraged to use the sin bin.

Robinson said his team didn’t play well enough to win the game but he was rightly not happy with the officials.

“Don’t send a letter and then not back it up,” he added.

“That incident was unacceptable from the bunker and referees but we weren’t good enough. We had lots of opportunities to win the game because we were really courageous but we weren’t in the game because we weren’t smart enough with our footy.”

Originally published as ‘Get on the same page’: NRL’s message to match officials