Cronulla Sharks fullback William Kennedy has confirmed he will accept an early guilty plea after making contact with referee Adam Gee on the weekend.
Coming during the Sharks enormous Friday evening victory over the Wests Tigers, Kennedy made what was clearly accidental contact with the referee while running in support to a break for the Sharks.
The match review committee then raised eyebrows on Saturday by slapping Kennedy with a Grade 2 contrary conduct charge that carried a one-match suspension with an early guilty plea.
Instead of heading to the judiciary to fight the charge though, Kennedy decided instead to take the early guilty plea.
The NRL's head of football Graham Annesley, instead of questioning the decision, said on Monday during his weekly briefing that referees needed to be protected at all levels of the game, whether the contact was accidental or not.
"The only person who can see this collision is about to take place is Will Kennedy," Annesley said.
"I am not saying he meant it, but he is the one who is looking forward, as opposed to the referee who is not looking at it at all.
"Regardless of if he is in the way or not. The referee has to be somewhere on the field, and they have to be protected. We can't allow a situation where the referee is in the way, so [a player thinks] 'I am going to move him out of the way'.
"We can never get to that. The ramifications of that, not just at NRL level ... anyone with an axe to grind in a local park, somewhere under the control of the commission. It's not very hard to get yourself into a position where you can have the referee between you and the ball or a defender and the next thing you know is there is a collision, and 'oh sorry it was an accident'. We can never get to that stage."
Annesley then re-iterated that players are the ones who must avoid contact with referees.
"The only people who can avoid those collisions are the two players, because the referees don't even know they're there," he said. "There has to be some responsibility on them, to say 'there is going to be a collision, I have to avoid it'," Annesley added.
"Players are pretty light footed, they can step off either foot to go through a gap. Why can't they step off either foot to avoid a collision. Maybe he doesn't [see him] but we can't allow a situation where we say it is acceptable."
Annesley also confirmed a controversial sin binning for Apisai Koroisau was the correct call.
