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Veteran journalist Paul Kent has slammed the NRL’s “gutless” match review committee, calling it a “dog’s breakfast” and declaring it’s “let the game down all year.”
It comes after Storm star Nelson Asofa-Solomona escaped a ban for a tackle on Joseph Suaalii’s during last Friday’s blockbuster clash.
Asofa-Solomona was hit with a grade one dangerous contact charge by the match review committee, which carries a $3,000 fine with an early guilty plea.
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That is despite the imposing prop’s history of dangerous contact charges, which NRL 360 host Braith Anasta called “one hell of a rap sheet.”
He has had 17 charges over his career — has pleaded guilty to 16 of them — and has only spent seven weeks on the sidelines during his eight years in the NRL.
“The match review panel is gutless,” Kent said on NRL 360.
“The point is missing games is what costs you. We have got this system now where he have these acceptable penalties ($750-$3,000), that sort of money for a guy earning $650,000, he’ll lose that down the back of his lounge. The fact is it’s not a big enough deterrent.
“The NRL carries on with all this rubbish about protecting the player and every game now is held up with all the HIAs we have to sit through because we care so much about the brain yet we do nothing discourage the other side of it — the intent to actually cause it.”
News Corp journalist Phil Rothfield, who called out Asofa-Solomona’s “cheap shots” in a column on Monday, agreed that the NRL does not come down hard enough on dangerous contact.
“If you’re a repeat offender, if they had pulled him up at the start of the year with his first one and told him ‘you’re going to have a two-week holiday because you’ve got a horrible list of priors,’ I’m not sure he would continue to play in the manner which he is,” Rothfield said on NRL 360.
“I’m not blaming Nelson Asofa-Solomona, as much as I’d like to get the crap out of his game, if the rules were tougher he would not be doing this.”
Kent took aim at the match review committee’s hypocrisy after just a week ago the character of Wests Tigers skipper James Tamou was taken into account to downgrade a charge, before calling on them to “show some guts.”
“A week ago we had James Tamou go to the judiciary and part of his defence was that he was a good character so the judiciary said ‘we’ll take your character into account here and we’ll downgrade it’,” he said.
“Yet this guy has been up five times this year and 17 times in his career, has pleaded guilty in 16 of those 17 times and yet his character is not taken into account because under the judicial system it’s not supposed to be.
“It’s just a dog’s breakfast what’s going on there.
“The only way to get it out of the game is to suspend people.
“The match review committee has got to start showing some guts and actually start suspending people.
“I don’t think they even know grade two and three charges are in the rule book because they never seemingly charge players with grade two or three.”
Fox League’s James Hooper conceded Asofa-Solomona “should be going out and buying a powerball ticket.”
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But the big reason why he has been so lucky comes down to the overhaul the judicial process underwent over the off-season to address inconsistent rulings where loading has come into play.
Rothfield revealed that had the old system been in place, Asofa-Solomona would have spent a week on the sidelines.
“What the review did was actually soften the penalties for this season,” he said.
“So I checked with the NRL and asked the question if this same incident, same grading happened last year would it still be a fine? They came back and said no it would be a suspension plus two weeks if he went and fought it.”
That triggered Kent to blow up over the people on the committee.
“The match review committee they are gutless, they are the problem,” he said.
“They had a big review over the summer to try and fix it all but you know what they couldn’t fix? The people that are in there working it.
“Until they get rid of them, the system wasn’t broke, the people in the system were broke. Everything is a grade one charge now because they want all the stars (playing) on the weekend.
“It is weak administration from the top down
“I have no faith in the match review committee. I don’t think they’re up to the job, I think they’ve let the game down all year.”
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Kent also took aim at Asofa-Solomona’s style of play, while Rothfield called on the Storm to “accept responsibility for their players’ actions.”
“Every time he sails too close to the wind, everyone says it’s an accident. It happens too frequently to be an accident every time,” Kent said.
“He always sails just this side of a grade two charge, which would cost him games.
“There’s nothing that’s happened to far to make anyone at the Storm go to Nelson and say ‘get rid of it’ because it’s not costing them games… If he starts missing games then they will.”
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