Cowboys coach Todd Payten defended Jeremiah Nanai over his sin bin for a hip drop tackle as Sharks star Nicho Hynes launched a passionate defence of players over the outlawed practice.
Nanai is facing being the latest NRL player suspended amid the game’s crackdown on hip drop tackles, but Payten didn’t think it was a conventional one.
“Nanai I didn’t think he made a great deal of contact on the back of his leg,” Payten said.
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Cowboys Press Conference | 03:22
“I thought his ass and hips were away from the back of his leg.
“Braden jumped up pretty quickly to throw the ball at him, so it musn’t have been too bad initially.”
Sharks coach Craig Fitzgibbon revealed a medial injury for Hamlin-Uele, but didn’t want to get drawn in on a potential suspension for Nanai.
“It is a medial injury. He doesn’t look good at this stage, but it is obviously pretty early,” Fitzgibbon said.
“We need to cool the jets a bit there and see how he pulls up tomorrow.
“But it won’t be up to me as to what happens there.”
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Hynes defended NRL players amid the NRL’s bid to get the hip drop out of the game, stressing that it is an accidental tackle and not practiced at training.
“I had a decent look, but no player means to go out and do hip drops,” Hynes said.
“It is something that we need to fix somehow, but there is no player who goes out intentionally to do a hip drop tackle.
“It is just such an awkward position that it gets into. It is a hard one and I don’t know what the answer is to it.
“You don’t like seeing players sent for 10, but you also don’t like seeing players miss games because of it (through injury).
“We have Braden who might be missing games for it.
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Sharks Press Conference | 05:32
“That one if it is that bad then it deserves (a suspension). But there is some of them at the moment that I don’t think even warrant a penalty.
“That’s not just teams against us. That is everyone across the board.
“It is a hard one. We need to do something about it, but the refs are just reffing to what they see and what is going on at the moment and they are doing a good job.
“But there needs to be a way to fix it somehow. I don’t know the answer to that, but there has to be because no player goes out to do a hip drop.
Hess brain explosion sees binning | 00:41
“It just unfortunately gets into an awkward position and it happens.”
Payten also took exception to Coen Hess’ sin bin for a trip on Sharks centre Jesse Ramien.
“I think Hess was really unlucky,” Payten said.
“I think it was a penalty, but it is what it is.”