Crawley Files: Kyle Flanagan deserved a ban for his knee to the head of Matt Lodge

When a player escapes a ban for a deliberate knee to the head of an opponent it proves the match review process isn’t working.

Kyle Flanagan avoided a ban for his knee to the head of Matt Lodge. Picture: Brett Costello

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The NRL needs to find a way to fix the diabolical mess that is the match review process.

It is laughable that Cronulla’s Kyle Flanagan escaped a ban this week for his deliberate knee to the head of Brisbane prop Matt Lodge.

As many have pointed out, you can only imagine the uproar had it been Lodge who let rip on Flanagan’s head.

What made it more embarrassing for the NRL is that head of football Graham Annesley had issued a warning a week earlier that foul play would not be tolerated and that the sin bin was also back in play.

Kyle Flanagan avoided a ban for this knee to the head of Matt Lodge.

This was the match review committee’s first chance to prove it was not just tough talk and it blew it on two fronts.

I spoke to former leading referee and match review chairman Greg McCallum about it and he was of the opinion it not only warranted a sin bin at the time but a three- to four-match suspension, regardless of Flanagan’s good record.

Annesley is a good man doing an unenviable job and he needs to be commended for continually turning up for his weekly media briefings, where he goes over the controversial incidents from the round.

But it is becoming increasingly embarrassing for him because some of the people he is working with are not doing him any favours.

The NRL could do worse than bring back Greg McCallum, says Paul Crawley.

The match officials have clearly lost confidence to make tough decisions on the spot, while the match review committee has become the game’s laughing stock.

If the NRL is serious about confronting the problem, it could do a lot worse than call back McCallum.

Like Annesley, he has a wealth of experience and it seems his judgment is a hell of a lot closer to the public’s perception of right and wrong than we are getting right now.