NRL head of football Graham Annesley has instructed bunker officials to use their discretion when ruling on contentious collisions after a pair of incidents over the weekend.
A penalty for a high tackle on Tom Trbojevic and the decision to send Harry Grant to the sin bin were the major talking points to come out of round 10, with Annesley conceding the decision to penalise Dolphins forward Jesse Bromwich was incorrect.
Grant was later hit with a Grade One Dangerous Contact charge for the contact on Cronulla's Daniel Atkinson while he was kicking, which he will fight at the judiciary on Tuesday night.
Annesley was not able to comment on the incident during his weekly football briefing because it is a live judiciary matter but revealed there has been no edict from head office for a crackdown on contact with kickers.
"There has been no directive given to match officials or the match review committee about any supposed crackdown on incidents like that," Annesley said.
"That is purely a discretionary matter for the referees and bunker to use their judgement in determining what action should be taken in any incident of alleged foul play."
Match: Dolphins v Sea Eagles
Round 10 -
home Team
Dolphins
4th Position
away Team
Sea Eagles
9th Position
Venue: Suncorp Stadium, Brisbane
Annesley did, however, discuss the process that led to a successful captain's challenge by Manly in their loss to the Dolphins on Thursday.
The Sea Eagles called for a review after Tom Trbojevic made an error while attempting to play the ball, claiming Bromwich had made high contact during the tackle.
The bunker agreed and awarded Manly a penalty.
Annesley conceded there was contact with Trbojevic's head, however declared it was not sufficient to warrant a penalty and the original decision should have been upheld.
Annesley says high contact on Trbojevic 'wasn't significant'
Moving forward, referees and bunker officials have been instructed to take into account the force of the contact when ruling on challenges for high tackles.
"By any reasonable assessment of that contact, I don't believe that most people would think that is sufficient to uphold the decision of high contact," Annesley said.
"What we have done since this incident is that all bunker officials have been reminded that for a decision like this to be upheld, there has to be some degree of force involved in the tackle.
"This was insignificant and incidental. As a result, the challenge should not have been upheld."
Trbojevic's night came to an end shortly after his successful challenge, the fullback limping from the field with a hamstring injury.
It was one of multiple soft tissue injuries to occur throughout the weekend, with Nathan Cleary also injuring his hamstring and Nicho Hynes missing Cronulla's win over Melbourne with calf tightness.
Annesley said this is not uncommon and pointed to data across sports, revealing hamstring injuries are among the top three injuries in the AFL, NFL and English Premier League.
He did, however, acknowledge there has been an increase in hamstring injuries this year and said NRL officials will be watching closely throughout the remainder of the season.
The data behind hamstring injuries in the NRL
"We record and collate all injury data from clubs that results in players missing games," Annesley said.
"We provide a consolidated injury report to clubs twice a year so they can examine that and look at their own practices and see where they stand in relation to the averages across the competition.
"We do also have a player safety subcommittee, we also have a medical advisory panel which is made up of doctors, eminent sports physicians and occupational physicians who oversee our medical practices within the game.
"They're always looking at anything that relates to player safety, whether it be the issue of head injuries or any other injury. Head injuries have been the primary focus of everyone over recent years, particularly publicly, but our medical advisers do look at all sorts of injuries and they try and look for reasons and provide feedback to clubs so they can adapt their own processes."
