Dragons coach Anthony Griffin had an issue with the use of the sin bin and joined the chorus of coaches who want certainty around the hip drop tackle after his side’s loss to the Titans.
The Dragons lost Francis Molo to a sin bin for a high shot, while the Titans kept all their players on the field despite a melee after Tino Fa’asuamaleaui was involved in a scuffle with Tyrell Sloan.
“I think they stripped the ball as well off Sloan, so I think there was probably a couple of things there,” Griffin said.
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St George Dragons Press Conference | 05:40
“But when you play away from home against a desperate side that’s always, you know you have got to overcome those things.
“I thought we scrambled and defended pretty well most of the night, but just at vital times there were penalties and points going against us that in the end that told.”
Griffin believes there needs to be more clarity on hip drop tackles after Jaydn Su’A was placed on report.
“I think we have always struggled with it for the last two or three years,” Griffin said of the hip drop tackle interpretation.
“They are not intentional. Sometimes when they haven’t got a decision to make at the time, whether they fall that way or not they are just trying to get the player to ground.
“It is something that as a game we have got to get some certainty about because accidents happen when you have got people with a lot of power and the way the game is played these days.
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“With the tackle technique you are not allowed to tackle around the legs anymore. There’s a lot of people hanging on to bodies and wastes and things like that don’t mean to get themselves in those positions.
“I think it is an issue for the whole game to get right.”
Ben Hunt believes there are some instances when it is difficult to avoid hip drop tackles.
“It’s a tough one when you are chasing a bloke down for a tackle from behind, there is obviously no intent in it, he is just trying to get tackle the bloke from behind,” Hunt said.
“I understand it is dangerous and blokes are getting hurt from it, but I don’t know how else he is going to get him down there from behind.”
Griffin believes the number of sin bins in Round 6 was due to the NRL’s crackdown on tackles that put player welfare at risk.
“We watched all the games this weekend and there was a letter that came out during the week and there is an edict a little bit like Magic Round a couple of years ago and there has been a player in the bin every game,” Griffin said.
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Gold Coast Titans Press Conference | 03:53
“We just have to be better and smarter than that. We can’t sit here and complain about the rules.
“I thought in general we went about that game and finally wrestled it the way we needed it, but in the end all those little things count.
“If you let the opposition down your end of the field as many times as they did and you have a bloke in the sin bin for 10 minutes it puts a lot of pressure on your defence and for me that was it.”
The Dragons have now lost three of their first five games and sit outside the eight as pressure increased on Griffin, but he was happy with his side’s application against the Titans.
“We were a bit clunky all night,” Griffin said.
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“We had a lot of energy and obviously a lot of effort. It was a really tight game of football.
“But we gave away a lot of penalties and legged them up our end. I think it was 8-2 in the end.
“In attack we ended up with 18 points and they scrambled really well, but we didn’t execute the way we needed to at vital times with the field position we had.
“We couldn’t clean it up once we got to 18-14, that’s the bottom line, but I thought we earnt the right to have the game more in our control by that time.”
Griffin refuted claims the rest of his players had to give as much commitment as captain Ben Hunt.
“I thought they all gave a heap today,” Griffin said.
“I don’t think that was an issue. He’s the halfback and the captain, so he is doing his job, but there was just vital times both with and without the ball that we were clunky.
“The try Sami got in the second half, the field position they got was penalty after penalty and we did it to ourselves.”
