Trent Robinson has made an honest admission, revealing he didn’t believe Api Koroisau’s lifting tackle on Roosters enforcer Lindsay Collins was worthy of a sin bin.
Benji Marshall’s Tigers had two players marched for a 10-minute sideline stint on Sunday night as the Tricolours ran out 40-6 victors.
Robinson threw his support behind claims made by master coach Wayne Bennett in an exclusive interview with foxsports.com.au on Friday regarding the landscape of the game’s refereeing.
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Bennett called for a conversation between the game’s powerbrokers and coaches and Robinson used Koroisau’s tackle as an example of how a sin bin can effect a contest.
“To be honest, I’m not sure. You can’t tackle (like that),” Robinson said.
“Obviously it’s a really dangerous tackle and you don’t have to be injured off that because the consequences are really bad on grabbing them between the legs and turning them over.
“It’s a hard one, but I don’t know if it’s 10 minutes or not, that’s me. Someone might tell me I’m completely wrong.
“But I think it changes the course of the game completely and I think that’s the debate Wayne (Bennett) started a few of days ago.
“A really good, honest conversation around the use of the bin and the use of weeks out, but we want to keep the integrity of the game.
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“I didn’t think it was 10 minutes, I said that in the box and the Doueihi one I didn’t look at again.”
Robinson also was of the belief clearer punishments needed to be outlined, with the match review committee potentially dishing out harsher suspension after the clash, therefore reducing the impact of sin bins during any given game.
“It definitely needs to be discussed, it benefited my team tonight, but more thinking from a game perspective about what should happen to keep our game going,” Robinson said.
“But then the match review has to do a good job in stamping those out because we don’t want players being grabbed between the legs.
“I haven’t thought too much about it but I could have seen 13 on 13 tonight for the whole game…. I don’t think anybody’s trying to get it wrong, it’s just we’re trying to get player safety up.
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“Which is really good for our game but we’ve got to ask the question, ‘have we overcorrected and how do we keep the contest in the game and deal with it (through suspensions) afterwards?’”
Meanwhile, Tigers centre Adam Doueihi was also sin binned, and Marshall explained he was “confused” by the decision after his tackle was ruled to have been a hip drop.
“I’m a little bit confused about them,” Marshall said, joining the chorus of coaches speaking out.
“Doueihi’s one in particular. I don’t know what he’s supposed to do. Sol (Solomona Faataape) puts on a good shot, sends him backwards and Doueihi’s just underneath him, I thought that was pretty harsh.
“It’s hard to know, it’s a lottery at the moment and we seem to be on the end of it.”