Bunker to intervene for significant incidents of foul play: Abdo

The NRL Bunker will only intervene to advise referees to act over incidents in previous tackles if they involved significant cases of foul play.

NRL CEO Andrew Abdo said players committing high tackles would continue to face disciplinary action, but the Bunker would only intervene in an incident not picked up by the on-field referee in the most serious cases.

“The Commission has taken a strong and consistent view that dangerous head high tackles won't be tolerated in the game and if they're with force, and its direct contact and there's no mitigation, those will be a sin bin,” Abdo said.

“Confusion has crept in around where something is perhaps not picked up immediately by the on-field referee and the Bunker is checking contact, force and mitigation in the background.”

There were 18 sin bins during last weekend’s ANZAC Round matches and a small number of those players received their marching orders after the bunker advised the referee of an incident that had occurred in a previous play.

Among them were Wests Tigers prop Fonua Pole and Manly’s Siosiua Taukeiaho, who were charged with Grade 1 Careless High Tackle offences.

“There’s been no policy change, and there hasn’t been for the last three years,” Abdo said. “We’re just reinforcing it.

“What we don't want to see is the game stopping and starting, and we don't want to see that happening for offences that are not significant or serious foul play, and that's always been the policy.

“It's really reserved for those circumstances that meet that threshold where we will see the Bunker intervening, and we don't expect that to be as often as it has been over the last couple of rounds.”

However, Abdo said the number of high tackles had increased this season and some teams were offending more than others.

He said high tackles had always been illegal and called for a collaborative effort by coaches, players and officials to reduce the number of incidents.

“Nothing has changed for decades, unfortunately we've been penalising, sinbinning and sending off players for high tackles,” Abdo said.

“There has been an increase in the number of high tackles this season, and that has resulted in more penalties and more sinbins, but we're hoping everyone adjusts and some of the teams and some of the players are adjusting better and faster than others.

“Some aren’t and they're going to be at a significant disadvantage because, as we've seen, if you lose a player in a game to the sin bin or lose a player through suspension - through match review afterwards - you are at a significant disadvantage.

“It does happen in a contact sport, but we would like to see it happen significantly less than it is at the moment.

“It's everyone's responsibility to make sure that we consider and prioritise player safety, and preventing and deterring head high tackles is a key element of that, so we need a collective effort.”

Match officials use a number of key indicators to determine the level of force in a high tackle and what action to take, including the speed of the player, the movement of the head, whiplash, whether or not the player is launching and if he is off both feet at the time of contact.

Mitigating factors are also considered, which could include the fact the ball carrier was falling or the game being played on a wet, slippery surface.

“Ultimately it comes down to a judgment call, but we try to provide as many tools as we can for the referees to use in making that judgment so that we are treating each tackle on its merits, individually,” Abdo said.

“If it's direct and it has significantly strong force, and there's no mitigation, then that has always been and will continue to be a sin bin, unfortunately.

 “We just don't want to see as many of those as we've seen in the last couple of weeks.”