Dragons lock Jack de Belin could be out of action for a month after being hit with a grade two dangerous contact charge for the hip drop tackle that saw him controversially sin-binned in Saturday night's loss to Manly.
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The Dragons were mounting a second-half comeback when de Belin was marched after the bunker intervened over a tackle on Sea Eagles winger Christian Tuipulotu in the 63rd minute.
The bunker call came after two further tackles had passed, with play stopped following a knock on from Eagles five-eighth Josh Schuster. The stoppage was prolonged as Tuipulotu was seen to behind play.
The delay gave the bunker an age to look back over the tackle, with official Kasey Badger directing on-field referee Chris Butler to bin de Belin and take play back 30 metres to award Manly the penalty.
As a third and subsequent offence, de Belin will cop a three-week suspension with a guilty plea, and would risk a further week should he elect to fight the charge at the judiciary.
Dragons interim coach Ryan Carr unleashed on the call in the post-game presser, blasting the process and week-to-week inconsistencies his side has repeatedly fallen victim to in recent weeks.
"De Belin was sin-binned and the game stopped for nearly two minutes for a guy (Tuipulotu) to get his knee strapped. That's not the rule, it's play on. Either leave the field or it's play on.
"Then in that moment, when they made an error on halfway, we lose not only possession and field position, but we lose a man for 10 in the bin. It's ridiculous, it's absolutely ridiculous.
"Last week Junior [Amone] got hip-dropped by [John] Bateman, there was no penalty, it didn't come back from the bunker, and he got charged after the game. The contradiction in that alone is ridiculous.
"I'm sorry I'm ranting, but I just feel so sorry for everyone involved with our club and everyone who's invested in it because it doesn't deserve to come down to that.
"I'm not saying that we win the game if he doesn't get sin-binned, but we shouldn't have to go through [being down to] 12 men for 10 minutes and then try and find a way to win it in the last minute."
Carr was equally aggrieved at the decision to deny Dan Russell a try midway through the second half, saying seeking clarification on both calls would do nothing to ease the pain of defeat for his battling club.
"Me seeking clarification doesn't help our fans and our members and our players and their families," Carr said.
"The game's gone now. I'll get clarification, I'll seek it, they'll give it to me [and say] 'yeah we were wrong' it doesn't help us. There's a lot of people putting a lot of time at our club into trying to find a win for our fans and our members and just themselves.
"For it to come down to that, the clarification doesn't help me. It doesn't help us, it doesn't help the boys. I'm sitting in there talking to the team after the game and I can't give them an explanation.
"I feel so sorry for my players, I feel sorry for the fans who have to watch the game, I feel sorry for fans of rugby league in general because that was a good game of footy out there and a call like that just has a huge bearing and impact on the game."
The comments may mean de Belin is not the only one to face sanction from the NRL, but Carr is unlikely to offer any apologies given his post-game spray.
"It's my job to stand up for my players and our club and I'm going to do it, and I'm not going to back down from it because it's ridiculous," Carr said.
"They feel like they've let each other down or the club down. They haven't, they're trying as hard as I've ever seen them try. In terms of the process of the way we played the game, it was the best we've played in a long time.
"We're improving heaps, and our effort's unreal. You can see that. They could easily be tapping out these players right now, there's so many excuses around them they could grab and they're not.
"That's what I love about them, but I'm not going sit here and just go 'I'll ask the NRL about it or I'll seek clarification'. It's ridiculous, it's seriously ridiculous."
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Mitch Jennings
Sports writer. Sport is my passion, rugby league my first love.
Sports writer. Sport is my passion, rugby league my first love.
