‘Ain’t going to say it’: Bellamy silent as Cronk calls out ugly act

Melbourne legend Cooper Cronk has called on the NRL to “sort it out” after a Storm enforcer was allowed to take out a Sea Eagles player.

Nelson Asofa-Solomona could consider himself lucky to have stayed on the field after an elbow from the Storm prop saw a Melbourne try rubbed off the board and Manly hooker Jake Simpkin ruled out of Saturday’s game.

The Storm looked to have hit back after Manly scored three consecutive tries to take a 16-6 lead, with Harry Grant taking on the line off a quick play-the-ball and slicing through.

But replays later showed Asofa-Solomona elbowing Simpkin in the head as he fought to play the ball and the Bunker subsequently intervened, with the try taken off the board.

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It ended up also being a costly moment for Manly as Simpkin was later ruled to be displaying Category 1 concussion symptoms and was subsequently ruled out for the game.

Asofa-Solomona may have been lucky to not spend time in the sin bin for his actions and could come under scrutiny from the NRL’s match review committee.

Storm coach Craig Bellamy was questioned on the incident in his post-game press conference but was keeping his mouth shut.

“I’ve got an opinion but I ain’t going to say it,” he said.

Former Storm halfback Cooper Cronk, however, was more than happy to give his take.

“The game needs to sort out that Simpkin goes off but Nelson continues to stay on the field and plays a role in that team,” Cronk said

“The game needs to sort that out big time. I think there are a couple of options the game really needs to sit down and think about because Manly cannot be disadvantaged in that situation and Melbourne get a one-up. I think he’s in some trouble.”

Meanwhile, Fox League’s Eloise Sohier later reported that the Sea Eagles and coach Anthony Seibold were “blowing up” over that ruling, believing that it should have been a Category 2 and that Simpkin was fine to play on.

Seibold confirmed that Manly’s testing deemed Simpkin was showing Category 2 symptoms and that they may consider challenging the ruling.

“It was disappointing, but we lost Jake for the game, so it was category one from the bunker but from our testing it was category two,” Seibold said.

“Jake does have a mark on his face and Nelson is a big man so he copped a fair elbow from Nelson, so he stayed down because of that bit he wasn’t concussed. We don’t believe it was category one but we lost him for the night so we were down to three players on the interchange bench.

“We will lose him for 11 days but we might challenge that because our doctor considers it a category two, so if that is the case tomorrow with the follow-up protocols then we might put a case that it was category two.”

Originally published as ‘Ain’t going to say it’: Bellamy silent as Cronk calls out ugly act