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A weekend of inconsistent calls for foul play has bled into the judiciary with NRL 360 panellists taking aim at the match review committee.
While plenty of the talk has been about the on field calls with the Bulldogs’ Jack Hetherington sent off, the Roosters’ Victor Radley was sin binned and Souths’ Latrell Mitchell just put on report.
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Ultimately Hetherington got a five week suspension on a grade three high shot, while Radley and Mitchell are both at the judiciary looking to get their grade two charges downgraded.
The Daily Telegraph’s Paul Crawley started by saying that he was worried about the issues seeping into Mitchell’s game and into the game of South five-eighth Cody Walker.
He added that it could “cost South Sydney the title” when Mitchell in particular gets too emotional.
Reports came out after the game that his dad Matt was in hospital and Latrell rushed away from the game.
But he said he didn’t agree with the charges after a high shot on the Tigers’ David Nofoaluma.
Mitchell also copped two more $1600 fines after a kick to get out of Luke Garner’s clutches after the Tiger held onto his leg.
Mitchell also hit Garner on the ground after he scored a try.
But he’s looking at four weeks on the sidelines after challenging the grading on his grade two high shot.
The Australian’s Brent Read said Latrell was “unlucky” with the other charges.
“I think the kick out at Luke Garner when he had his foot held, he was not looking and was just trying to free his leg,” Read said. “Sliding with the knees on Garner as well, shouldn’t have been charged. I’d say two guys did worse.”
The panel showed Jonas Pearson’s hot on Manly’s Tom Trbojevic well after he scored a try, as well as the Sharks’ Briton Nikora scored with the Knights’ Mitch Barnett coming in late in defence with Read pointing to the Newcastle second rower “hitting him in the head”.
Crawley said: “This is the problem though — the consistency is the problem. You’ve had two or three over the weekend that didn’t get charged and then you’ve got the grade two of the incident on Nofoaluma, that’s a grade two, the same as Victor Radley’s — compare that to Felise Kaufusi.”
In round two, Kaufusi was suspended for two weeks after an elbow to the head of Eels forward Ryan Matterson.
Matterson hasn’t played since with concussion symptoms.
Crawley said it’s tough to get consistency on field but surely the judiciary can.
“This is the problem,” Crawley continued. “With the match review committee, they do have hindsight on their side. They do have the opportunity to go over and over and over. Watch it in slow motion, watch it again, watch it in freeze-frame, frame-to-frame — they have all this opportunity and there is still no consistency.
“You sit 100 people down in a pub and tell them to watch the Latrell tackle on Nofoaluma, Victor Radley’s on Munster and then Kaufusi’s on Ryan Matterson and the damage that has done and you tell me they’re all grade two.
“This will get downgraded tonight and tomorrow Peter V’landys should haul them all in and say how’re we going to fix this because consistency has to be better.”
Crawley also called for them to work out what constitutes a charge, citing Panthers star Viliame Kikau’s high shot on Charnze Nicoll-Klokstad, which left the Raiders fullback on the sideline with a neck injury as well as Knights forward Tyson Frizell’s high shot on the Titans’ Phillip Sami, with the winger missing a week.
“Even the grade one charge for the knees in the back, there is three that Souths have pointed out after he pleaded guilty to that, two haven’t been charged and one does. How does that work?”
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