Parramatta Eels forward Shaun Lane has revealed none of the players on the RLPA's men's advisory group voted in agreement with the NRL's pre-season challenge rule trial.

The NRL announced that during the pre-season challenge, players could be sent to the sin bin if a player if a player was ruled out due to Category 1 concussion symptoms, or failed a Category 2 head injury assessment, thus ruling them out of the game.

It means a player could be retrospectively sin binned up to 15 minutes after they committed the original tackle if the referee and bunker elected not to penalise a high tackle in that way on the spot.

The NRL confirmed the rule was only being trialled during the pre-season and wouldn't be used during the 2025 regular season, but Lane told Wide World of Sports this week that players were against the rule, leaving there seemingly little chance of it being enacted into the competition on a fulltime basis from the start of 2026.

"We were consulted on that new sin bin rule with the head knock thing and we all thought it was silly, but the NRL went ahead and decided to trial it in this period anyway," Lane told the publication.

"I just think that waiting 15 minutes until the person fails their SCAT examination โ€” I just think that delay before you then send the person to the bin just sounds silly to me.

"I'd rather the referee just make the decision on the spot and then the person who goes off with the HIA โ€” the results of the examination aren't going to change the decision that the referee made.

"There are different scenarios that could happen in games where, let's say, if someone gets concussed with 10 minutes to go in the game then that person [who committed the high tackle] doesn't actually get sent to the bin [and] the team who had the concussed player doesn't actually receive any benefit from that rule."

It's understood the RLPA are additionally still frustrated with the NRL for not altering the rule around 18th men only being able to be activated once two players have been ruled out with concussion.

That hardly comes as a surprise, although the NRL did concede from their original 18th-man rule, when it took three players being ruled to activate the reserve.

Some in rugby league have simply suggested raising the interchange bench to five players could be a tactic for the NRL to increase the versatility of teams to cover injuries, while also minimising the impact of injuries.