The NRL's head of football Graham Annesley has denied a crackdown over high shots was in play during Round 23
The weekend saw big calls made in multiple games, with Moeaki Fotuaika and Nathan Brown both sent off, while Rabbitohs' prop Thomas Burgess was sin-binned.
All three tackles were handed a Grade 2 careless high tackle charge which resulted in a suspension for all three players.
Meanwhile, Penrith Panthers five-eighth Jarome Luai escaped with a fine and a Grade 1 charge despite making contact with his shoulder to the jaw of Melbourne Storm prop Nelson Asofa-Solomona.
The send-offs in the first two games of the weekend led to suggestions that a crackdown had come into the game in much the same way it did during Magic Round a couple of years ago.
The change of interpretation was alarming just four weeks out from the finals, but Annesley said they were simply judgement calls, and no other instructions outside of the usual had been provided by the game's administrators or referees' coaching staff.
"The first thing I'd like to address today was suggestions that over the weekend there was some sort of crackdown underway in relation to a range of different things," Annesley said during his weekly briefing at NRL HQ on Monday.
"[Whether it was] infringements by teams on the field, technical infringements, foul play... I just want to re-enforce that nothing could be further from the truth.
"There were no instructions given to match officials leading up to the weekend outside of the ordinary instructions that they get every single week and the coaching that they undertake during the course of the week through their coaching staff, so there was no crackdown.
"What we saw on the weekend was a reflection of the intensity [of the games and competition]. There were a number of games that were extremely close, tight and difficult to referee. There were tight decisions, and some of those decisions of course didn't go the way clubs would hope they would go, and fans hoped they would go.
"There was quite a lot of discussion about the decisions made in those games.
"We saw a number of instances of foul play over the weekend where we had players penalised on the field, placed on report, sent to the sin and of course, we had two players sent off in the NRL and we saw another dismissal in the NRLW, but that was not as a result of any instructions from either head office or from the referees coaching staff. These are judgement calls from the referees that they are called upon to make every single week and every single game.
"They have to adjudicate on the circumstances around those incidents, and the seriousness of those incidents in deciding which levels of action are required in each case."
Annesley admitted that on occasion, the refereeing group didn't reach the level of consistency hoped for, although made no specific reference to the round just completed where controversy was king.
"However, I will say that the referees are always striving for consistency, but they don't always reach the level we would hope they would reach," Annesley said.
"That's not to say that we will always agree with those, and clearly there has been public discussion over the weekend about so-called inconsistency in those matters. I'm not here to defend them one way or the other, because everyone will find their own view, but what I will say is that there are some common themes that are causing concern at the moment, particularly around shoulder contact with the head of an opponent."
With high tackles on the rise in recent weeks, match review committee charges at an all-time high this season, and more players sidelined than ever before, Annesley said the crackdown is nothing new.
The NRL's head of football said it was the responsibility of coaches and players to avoid tackling in a range which reduced the margin for error.
"We have seen this happening. This is nothing new, but we are seeing it happen more often. Over the last few years, everyone knows going right back to magic round a few years ago that there has been a focus on taking action against unnecessary contact with the head and neck of opponents. That's not new, that's been going on now for several years and that is in response to the game and commission's approach to making our game as safe as possible to play," Annesley said.
"We are still seeing these tackles where players go in and aim quite high, they are obviously not trying to hit the head or neck of an opponent, but they are aiming quite high.
"They are attempting to wrap in a front-on tackle but their target zone is up around the shoulders and you only need to go marginally wrong and it results in some of the incidents we have seen not only across the course of the weekend, but that we have seen across the course of the season and previous seasons as well.
"I would make a plea again to players and coaches to address this, because if they continue to aim in that marginal area around the shoulders with those types of tackles, particularly at velocity which many of our tackles are, then if that goes wrong, you have to accept that there will be consequences for that.
"Whether those consequences are players being penalised, placed on report, sin-binned or being sent off, those consequences will flow. The only way to stop those consequences and to avoid having the arguments about consistency with the way match officials deal with those is for them not to happen."
Annesley didn't offer comment during his briefing on the lack of punishment on-field, or via the match review committee, for Jarome Luai's tackle.
The NRL's edict to teams and players to tackle lower and not run the risk of high shots could ultimately see the way the game is played change in the coming years, with other sports - particularly rugby union - doing everything they can to avoid head and neck contact as the risk of concussion is understood, and future legal issues for sports grows.
