NRL Head of Football Graham Annesley has made the extraordinary claim that most of the 15 sin bins from the last round of the premiership were warranted despite severe and vicious backlash from fans and the media alike.
Speaking on SEN Radio on Tuesday, Annesley said there were even more incidents missed that could have seen even more bins.
Annesley’s comments come despite NRL CEO Andrew Abdo doing the media rounds in the last 24 hours and conceding that the officials had gone too far and the NRL would be pulling referees and the Bunker into line ahead of Magic Round at Suncorp Stadium.
“Having reviewed all of the incidents that were sin bins last weekend, there’s not too many of them that wouldn’t have been sin bins,” Annesley said.
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“We did have an exceptional weekend with a number of incidents and there were probably a couple that were missed that weren’t sin binned as well that could have been.
“We’re not going to back away from contact with the unnecessary forceful contact with the head and neck of players but we just need the referees to get that balance right between the incidents that do deserve to go to the bin and those that may have mitigation or perhaps don’t reach that bar to turn something from a penalty into a sin bin.
“We just need to spend more time getting that right and hopefully we’ll see that happen this coming weekend and beyond.”
Annesley’s stance flies in the face of Abdo’s comments on Channel Nine on Monday evening.
“There were far too many sin-binnings for our liking.”
