'Not what we want to see': Players warned to maintain discipline

NRL head of football Graham Annesley has praised match officials for “staying the course” in Sunday’s Roosters-Rabbitohs elimination final and warned that they won’t back down on mass sin-binnings if there was a repeat in another play-off match.

Referee Ashley Klein sent a record seven players to the sin bin on Sunday and Annesley said the behaviour of both teams had left him with no other option as emotions spilled over between the fierce rivals.

The strong action by Klein and match officials on the field was backed up the Match Review Committee laying five charges, which included suspensions for South Sydney prop Tom Burgess and his Sydney Roosters counterpart Jared Waerea-Hargreaves.

“I commend the match officials for staying the course,” Annesley said. “There would be occasions in the past where some might have expected the referee to say, ‘gee, I can’t put any more players in the bin’, and wear the referee down, so to speak.

“There might be some people who would expect that would have happened, but we have worked very hard on consistency with the referees, and they know what is acceptable and not acceptable in the game.

“When they are confronted with those circumstances, they also have a responsibility to act.

“Cleary there was a lack of discipline by the players. Our objective is to try and keep everyone on the field but that’s not in the hands of the match officials; that’s in the hands of the players and how they approach the game.

“There was a lot of good football interspersed in those incidents but those incidents that took place marred the spectacle and bought the referees into the game.”

The tone was set when Roosters lock Victor Radley was sent to the sin-bin in just the fourth minute and the procession of players spending 10 minutes in the bin surpassed the previous record of five in the 1986 Manly-North Sydney derby.

Radley and Rabbitohs winger Taane Milne were each sinbinned twice, while Waerea-Hargreaves, Burgess and Souths prop Tevita Tatola also received their marching orders during the spiteful clash, won 30-14 by South Sydney.

Asked if the match officials lost control of the match, Annesley said: “I think they were the only ones, in some cases, who maintained control.

“Had they had not taken action that they took we could have seen an even more serious situation develop in that game, so I commend them for staying the course in that game and for making sure they maintained the standard”.

Roosters coach Trent Robinson said afterwards that he was disappointed at the lack of discipline on display with so much at stake for both teams and it was a view echoed in the Rabbitohs camp.

“To the credit of the coaches, after the game they didn’t try to shift any blame to the match officials,” Annesley said.

“Players know where that line in the sand is and what’s acceptable and what’s not. I don’t think it is necessarily what we want to see in our game.

“The game has worked hard over many years, going back decades, to eliminate foul play and player misconduct.

“We have got a responsibility as a game to the entire community and that is not an acceptable way to play the game in some of those instances.”

Meanwhile, Annesley said there were concerns within the game about players staying down after a tackle in the hope that the bunker awards a penalty.

Robinson took umbrage at suggestions players feigned injury in Sunday’s match but Annesley said NRL officials looked for trends.

“I am concerned about the issue of players waiting for the intervention of officials,” he said.

“That’s something we’re constantly monitoring and reviewing, and we will review that again in the off-season. We just have to work hard to find ways of dealing with that so it’s not an ongoing problem.

“But in some cases when these players stay down, it’s because they are injured. I’m not going to stand here and pretend it’s not something we’re monitoring and unprepared to deal with.”