Buzz’s highlights and lowlights Round 5: Stats back Todd Payten’s claims that struggling clubs cop raw deal from referees

Todd Payten says lower-placed NRL teams are treated worse by referees than the good sides. Here are the stats to back it up, via PHIL ROTHFIELD.

Cowboys coach Todd Payten says lower-placed NRL teams are treated worse by referees than the good sides.

Payten blew up last weekend, declaring: “Teams that have been up the pointy end of the competition for a while now, or have high-profile players get the benefit of the doubt too often, and that’s frustrating.

“That’s my opinion from watching footy for a long time.”

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And here are some statistics from the last three seasons when the new rules were introduced that actually back up his claims.

The teams that have had most players sin-binned are the Warriors (18) and the Wests Tigers and the Broncos (15).

Lower ranked clubs can struggle with discipline. Or is it the refs?

The Bulldogs, Cowboys and Titans are also in the ‘top eight’ for most sin-bins, all with 14.

At the other end of the scale the Penrith Panthers have had only five sin-binned in the last three seasons.

This isn’t to say they are getting preferential treatment and it could be that they are just a more disciplined team.

The Warriors, Broncos, Bulldogs, Titans, Wests Tigers and Raiders are also in the ‘top eight’ for most penalties conceded with the Sydney Roosters.

Wooden spooners the Bulldogs have also conceded the most six-again restarts.

High-flying Penrith have the best discipline in the comp (Photo by Matt King/Getty Images)

HIGHLIGHT

The completion of a fantastic season of NRLW in which the skills levels and quality of each game just kept on improving.

HIGHLIGHT II

Melbourne Storm and the Canberra Raiders in Wagga Wagga on Saturday, a proud old rugby league town that has struggled for participation numbers in recent years because of an AFL invasion.

LOWLIGHT

Tens of thousands of dollars that could be spent on bush football and grassroots participation is being wasted on expensive lawyers to fix the dysfunctional NSWRL.

Cody Walker has had a tough start to the season (Photo by Chris Hyde/Getty Images)

SLEEPWALKER

Cody Walker’s form for the Rabbitohs remains an issue. He still has no try assists after five rounds. Last year he had 37 all up. His line-break assists are also down from 58 last year to two in five rounds.

SPOTTED

South Sydney Rabbitohs coach Jason Demetriou spent Saturday morning watching his daughter play junior netball at Sylvania before heading to Homebush for the match against the Dragons.

SHOOSH

Which NRL club chief executive is earning a staggering $950,000-a-year – more than double what a number of his counterparts are taking home.

Sam Walker with the clutch sideline conversation pic.twitter.com/FrEBxQvmhq

— Bradley Cundy (@CundyBradley) April 8, 2022

IT’S MINE

You’ve got to admire Sam Walker’s confidence. With the Roosters needing a sideline conversion in the dying stages of Friday night’s game against the Broncos, Paul Momirovski approached Walker and offered to take it. The 19-year-old insisted he could kick it … and he did.

360 VIEW

Catch you tonight on NRL 360 on Fox League at 6.30pm with Braith Anasta, Paul Kent, James Hooper and Cooper Cronk to dissect all the biggest issues from round five of the competition.

Originally published as Buzz’s highlights and lowlights Round 5: Stats back Todd Payten’s claims that struggling clubs cop raw deal from referees