The NRL match review committee has backed a series of hip-drop sin-binnings, with Dale Finucane facing up to a month’s suspension for his tackle on Warriors fullback Charnze Nicoll-Klokstad.
Finucane and Warriors forward Marata Niukore were both sin-binned for hip-drop tackles at Cronulla on Sunday. Canterbury’s Jayden Okunbor was marched and charged for a similar effort on Cowboys star Jason Taumalolo later in the day.
All three were issued grade two dangerous contact charges, with Finucane’s two previous offences bumping what would typically be a one-game suspension up to three weeks, with an early guilty plea.
Should the Cronulla skipper fight the charge at the NRL judiciary and lose, he would be banned for a month, taking in games against the Roosters, Bulldogs, Cowboys and Dolphins.
Niukore (second offence) and Okunbor face two- and one-game suspensions, respectively.
Finucane’s 74th-minute sin-binning for his tackle on Nicoll-Klokstad was a crucial juncture in the 32-30 Warriors win. The Cronulla skipper was bemused by the call both on the field and afterwards.
“I didn’t really get an explanation from [referee] Ben [Cummins],” Finucane said. “I was asking him what the outcome was going to be but I didn’t get too much from him.
“I said from my point of view that there was no intention whatsoever to have a hip drop. Obviously, Charnze Nicoll-Klokstad has got great footwork and just beat me with his footwork. With the rain and getting beaten by the footwork, I swung off to the back on the tackle, so there was no malice or intent whatsoever.”
Niukore’s citing for a tackle on Siosifa Talakai also perplexed many pundits, given it was not called on-field at the time by Cummins but was instead picked up by the NRL bunker.
Of the three hip-drop tackles charged, Okunbor’s effort on Taumalolo appears to be the most obvious swinging of a defender’s body weight after gripping the ball-carrier. The evidence of Niukore doing the same on Talakai is debatable. NSW coach Brad Fittler described the decision to bin Niukore as “harsh” in commentary.
“Talakai is pulling through the tackle, there’s no other place for Niukore to be other than behind him,” Fittler said.
Warriors coach Andrew Webster took issue with the bunker’s delayed intervention.
“I’m not a fan of going back,” Webster said.
“That’s no criticism on anyone who’s making those decisions tonight because I haven’t seen it and I don’t know what happened. But it deflates the hell out of you when you defend a set and then you’re like ‘we’ve got the ball’ and then there’s confusion because they’re checking this and then we go all the way back. I’m not blaming anyone, but it’s frustrating.”
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