Newcastle Knights legend Andrew Johns and coach Adam O’Brien have weighed in on the sin-bin controversy, which saw a record 18 awarded at the weekend.
NRL officials spent Monday combing through the offences from round eight, after conceding match referees went too far.
While pining the blame firmly on players for a rise in high tackles, CEO Andrew Abdo conceded the bunker was interfering too often when play had moved on.
Johns, the Eighth Immortal, labelled the current situation as “farcical”, “embarrassing” and “beyond a joke”.
He was clearly ropable not only on Nine’s Sunday Footy Show but also during the call of the Wests Tigers-Cronulla Sharks showdown later that day.
In fact, he went as far as to remain silent for the final 23 minutes of the golden-point encounter, exasperated by a bunker decision to go back several plays and send Tigers prop Fonua Pole for a stint on the sidelines.
“The breakdown of this sending players to the bin is absolutely farcical,” Johns said.
“It’s gone beyond a joke. It is embarrassing.
“I don’t know whose decision it is, but you need to come out tomorrow [Monday] and you need to say why we’re doing it… and you need to show examples and show players what you want them to do with tackling techniques because this is a farce.”
O’Brien also aired his frustration, after front-rower Leo Thompson was binned in the fourth minute of Newcastle’s clash with New Zealand.
“Accidents are going to happen when the game is this fast and there’s that much fatigue,” he said.
“And, we’ve done that – we’ve made the rule changes.
“It’s a hard game for these boys to play at the moment.”
While the bunker will still act as normal and recommend a punishment if the game is stopped by foul play, the bar will be lifted higher for video officials to intervene if the match is flowing.
“If it’s marginal on whether they should be binned or not, then we should continue and allow the match review committee to deal with that,” NRL head of football Graham Annesley said.
“If it’s at the lower end of the scale, we don’t want the game stopped and players put in the bin for incidents that can be dealt with by way of report and reviewed by the match committee later.
“But, most of the examples that we’ve reviewed today from the weekend, we’re comfortable that the sin bin was the appropriate action.”
O’Brien will now turn his attention to Magic Round and the Knights’ encounter with the Rabbitohs at Suncorp Stadium on Saturday 3 May.
He admitted Newcastle was struggling for confidence after a 26-12 loss to the Warriors.
The side’s attack appeared the biggest issue on Friday night.
It averages just 7.2 points across the Knights’ past five outings.
Newcastle has not led any game on its longest losing streak for nearly three years.
“We’re down on confidence, no doubt,” he said.
“However, it’s not going to turn for us – we’ve got to make it happen.
“Some of it is personnel.
“We’ve got some young guys out there with our experienced guys missing.
“If it was an easy answer, it’d be fixed by now.
“But, we’ve spoken about high accountability and working hard and being really disciplined and connected.”
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