‘A little disturbing’: Ivan Cleary calls for overhaul of hip-drop interpretation, voices concerns over MRC

Ivan Cleary has weighed in on the decision to suspend one of his players for what he says was a classic rugby league tackle.

A decision to give the Australian Rugby League Commission extra powers to charge players if the match review committee misses something shows a “disturbing” lack of confidence in the system according to Penrith coach Ivan Cleary, who declared it needs to be fixed.

The premiership-winning coach also called on changes to be made to the hip-drop rule after Scott Sorensen was suspended for two matches for a tackle that Cleary says resulted in a “cold case” investigation because someone got hurt.

The Rugby League Players Association revealed last week that it had “serious concerns” with the decision to amend the judiciary code that gives the ARLC “absolute discretion and extraordinary powers” to charge players.

The argument from head office is that it’s an extra layer of protection for players, but the RLPA and Cleary aren’t on-board with a move that has undermined player trust in the MRC.

The RLPA put out a strong release last week disagreeing with the move to grant the ARLC new powers. Picture: Sam Ruttyn

“We had a charge on the weekend that I was very disappointed with,” Cleary said.

“So I would suggest that the danger there is that the commission is not showing a lot of confidence in the MRC, I would say. I don’t know if that’s the actual reason, but you can assume that, which is a little disturbing.

“That’s the main issue – do we have confidence in the MRC? And if we don’t, we should probably fix that up rather than coming up with a ‘we’ll step in if we don’t think it’s right’.

“There’s some work to be done.”

The commission didn’t need to step in on the weekend after the MRC came down hard on Sorensen, who will miss two matches after he was hit with a grade 2 dangerous contact charge for a tackle that injured Dallin Watene-Zelezniak.

It’s his second ban of the year, but his coach is adamant that it wasn’t a hip-drop tackle, with Cleary also confused by a call earlier in the year to suspend Mitch Kenny.

Dallin Watene Zelezniak will go for scans on a suspected high ankle sprain (syndesmosis injury) suffered in Round 16.

Another typical mechanism - tackler contact causes boot to get stuck in turf & foot to twist out. Considering traumatic contact concern for high grade injury. pic.twitter.com/zTf10KPFX6

— NRL PHYSIO (@nrlphysio) June 21, 2025

“I think he was very hard done by,” he said, not wanting to risk fighting the charge in case it resulted in an extra week.

“There has been enough talk about hip drops this year where I think you’ve heard from coaches post-game who are confused.

“The actual hip-drop rule, I don’t even know who wrote it or when it was written. It’s very vague and nothing like why it was brought in.

“Scott made a tackle that is in most people’s eyes was a classic rugby league tackle. No one saw it, even the player who was tackled didn’t think anything of it.

“Not any player on the field, not the referee, the touch judges and not 18,000 fans (thought it was bad), but someone got hurt so we had to do a cold case and go back and try to find it.

“It’s definitely something that needs to be looked at because it’s not just us and Scott.

“Just because someone gets an ankle injury,doesn’t mean somebody needs to be suspended.

“It’s unfortunate … but it was an accident.”