Panthers coach Ivan Cleary took aim at the NRL’s bosses after interchange hooker Soni Luke was sin-binned for a hip-drop tackle in Penrith’s shock defeat to Wests Tigers on Saturday night.
If previous cases are an indication, Luke is set to be sidelined after performing a hip-drop tackle on Tigers forward Alex Twal during the Panthers’ 12-8 loss to the embattled club at Bathurst’s Carrington Park.
But when Cleary was asked about the incident in his press conference, he took a dig at the NRL over its handling of the hip-drop drama.
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“I’ve seen a few like that now, and the only way to avoid it is to let go … How do you tell a footballer to let go? That’s my question,” Cleary said.
“Honestly, it was like (Broncos five-eighth) Ezra Mam’s last week. He got suspended. The only way he can avoid that, as far as I could see, is if he lets go.”
As the second man in, Luke grabbed Twal around the waste, lifted his boots off the ground and used gravity and his weight to bring the Tigers forward down.
Mam copped a one-game suspension for the hip-drop tackle mentioned by Cleary.
The playmaker was sin-binned and accepted an early guilty plea after performing the move on Eels forward Matt Doorey in Darwin last Friday night.
“The game makes the decisions so I dunno (where the game is heading in regards to hip-drop tackles). I hear the same questions each week and no one’s got the answers,” Cleary said on Saturday night.
“Hip-drops are a bit like crusher tackles; when they were first introduced they looked different to what they look (like) do now. Somehow we blend them in all together (like they’re) the same.
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“I don’t know how you tell a player to let go deliberately. It’s just not in any players’ make-up and it’s not an instinctive thing to do.”
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Panthers co-captain Isaah Yeo also made it clear he was confused by the NRL’s stance on hip-drop tackles.
“You just have to have an awareness, I guess, but then it’s a split-second thing,” Yeo said in the press conference.
“You’d feel like you’re in a really good position and all of a sudden you’re in a bad one, just like that, so it’s a hard one.
“I feel like you know the bad ones and then the 50-50 ones. The ones that really hurt someone, you can tell. They’re a lot different those ones, I reckon, to these little ones going on at the moment.”
Cleary left no doubt over who he was blaming.
“I feel for the referees, actually, and whoever’s making these calls,” Cleary said.
“Because that’s what they’ve been told and they’re doing it.”
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