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The Knock On: Refereeing “lottery” continues as NRL crackdowns come and go

High tackles, hip drops and forearm bumper bars, but will the NRL be consistent?

Published by
Zero Tackle

NRL refereeing crackdowns continue to come and go, and it has fans whipped up into a frenzy.

Consistency in week-to-week NRL officiating has at times struggled to make sense of the rule book, leaving fans questioning what is real and what isn't.

On this week's Knock On Podcast, host Terry Mortimer used his Terry's Sin Bin segment to go in on the NRL's edict around crackdowns, with consistency non-existent.

"I think it comes from the NRL and the top down and we see all these crackdowns that happen every week - you're not allowed to head high someone, you're not allowed to punch someone, you're not allowed to hip drop someone. We see them and then they go away," Mortimer said on the podcast.

"You take it back to 2022. The Cronulla Sharks against the New Zealand Warriors. Reece Walsh steps Will Kennedy, who sticks his hand out and clotheslines Reece Walsh, and instantly knows he is gone. Everyone at the ground knows Will Kennedy is about to get sent off, and rightly so.

"You take that to the Gold Coast last weekend. Valentine Holmes shoulder charge directly to the face of Jayden Campbell. The worst part about this was that the penalty was called four tackles later. They took it back down the field, put him on report and sent him to the sin bin, and you think to yourself what is the point of this crackdown if a brutal shoulder charge is ten minutes in the bin?"

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Hip drops have also been a heavy talking point this season.

"The second one is the hip drop. It became a big thing a couple of weeks ago, and it's barely reported these days," Mortimer said.

"You don't know what's going to happen every week."

You can watch the full episode of this week's Knock On Podcast, as well as other rugby league video, on the Zero Tackle YouTube Channel or listen wherever you get your podcasts.

Published by
Zero Tackle