Cleary was slapped with a $1500 fine for a late shot on Talatau Amone as the Dragons rookie kicked the ball in the 61^st minute. However, it was an incident 10 minutes earlier in the lead-up to Matt Burton's 53rd minute try that raised Griffin's ire.

It came after Jack Bird spilled the ball in a hit from Cleary. It wasn't the most venomous of hits but it appeared to make little use of his arms. It was reviewed as it became part of a try-scoring play but was not penalised on field.

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It was subject to fierce social media debate and NRL match review panel chairman Michael Robertson said that it came down to a lack of force or risk of injury.

"There are four elements to a shoulder charge," Robertson said.

"The first is force, the second is whether any forceful contact is generated by the shoulder, the third is whether the tackle is made without trying to wrap the arms, and the final element is whether the tackle is careless - did a player play with the proper level of care?

"The only element which is clear in this particular instance is the use of the arms. In this instance, Nathan Cleary was bracing for contact. He actually is bumped backwards as a result of the collision.

"For it to be a charge, the match review committee would need to agree that Cleary did not use the proper level of care, which the game requires. And did it bring an unacceptable risk of injury? We deemed it did not."

It's not a view that will go down well at Dragons HQ, with leading try-scorer Mikaele Ravalawa having missed eight weeks this season through three seperate shoulder-charge sanctions.

The match review panel didn't deem it worthy of a sanction but Griffin had no doubt in the aftermath that it warranted a penalty and the overturning of Burton's try.

"How that gets awarded a try, I don't know," Griffin said.

"It was a clear-cut shoulder charge, that's the one they brought the rule in for where you don't use your arms. Mika Ravalawa's had three suspensions this year for hitting blokes around the belly button and not using his arms.

"That's a try-scoring bit of vision that they had to go back and watch and watch so I don't know how they cleared that. It's a massive play, it was six points against the run of play and unfortunately that was our night.

"We came here and played a really high-intensity game for 80 minutes but intercepts and a couple of calls like that... it makes it hard. The biggest disappointment for me is how that try gets allowed. I want to know why that's not a shoulder charge."

Dragons halfback Adam Clune was also slapped with a $1500 fine for a 46^th minute challenge on Cleary that saw the NSW star land awkwardly on his right ankle after kicking.

He escaped injury and Clune can have his fine reduced to $750 with an early guilty plea.