NRL world reacts as high-tackle crackdown sends 18 players to sin bin in round eight

The NRL world is reeling after a crackdown on high tackles that saw 18 players sent to the sin-bin in round eight.

That is one more than the combined tally from the previous two weekends — which already came after interpretations were tightened — and equal to the tally from the first five rounds.

Six players have accepted a combined 13 games' worth of suspensions from the weekend, with Penrith's Scott Sorensen and Tigers prop Fonua Pole taking their cases to the judiciary.

From coaches to players to fans to expert commentators, there are concerns for the state of the game heading into the NRL's regular season showpiece at Magic Round in Brisbane later this week.

'A ball-ache to watch'

The round kicked off with three Bulldogs and a Bronco sent for high shots, meaning Brisbane's 42-18 win only featured 13 vs 13 for just over half its run time on Thursday.

Dogs facing bans totalling over two months Photo shows Sitili Tupouniua runs off the field in the rain as the referee signals a cross with his arms during an NRL game. Canterbury's first loss of 2025 comes at an even bigger cost, with Sitili Tupouniua, Josh Curran and Matt Burton facing a combined nine weeks on the sidelines even with early guilty pleas.

Canterbury coach Cameron Ciraldo said the game was "hard to watch" and it seemed he was not just talking about seeing his team drop a game for the first time this season.

"It was a ball-ache to watch for me, so I am sure everyone else felt the same," Ciraldo told reporters.

Bulldogs utility Kurt Mann sounded resigned to the game's fate as he spoke to ABC Sport after the loss, which saw Sitili Tupouniua (five games), Josh Curran (three games) and Matt Burton (one game) suspended.

"I guess it's the way the game is going. Some people don't really agree with it, a lot of people probably wouldn't, but that's just the way it is now," he said.

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On Friday, Knights coach Adam O'Brien said after losing prop Leo Thompson for 10 of the first 15 minutes of the 26-12 loss to the Warriors, that the rules protecting players' heads, tightened during the last high-profile crackdown in 2021, were already sufficient.

'Spoils the game'

Gold Coast coach Des Hasler admitted his Titans were to blame for their 50-18 loss to the Cowboys on Saturday, but said the constant dismissals were ruining the game.

"[I'm] not saying they're not deserved, but … it spoils the game of footy doesn't it? The sin bins, I think it's inconsistent but there's nothing we can do to control that. It spoils the game of footy," he said.

In Manly's 26-10 win over Penrith, coaches from both teams were frustrated by the rules.

Paul Alamoti was one of two Panthers binned in the 26-10 loss to Manly. (Getty Images: Cameron Spencer)

Sea Eagles coach Anthony Seibold called for another rethink because the decisions were "hurting the product".

"I have no confidence in looking at a tackle and understanding whether that's going to be a sin bin now or not. It's hurting the product," he said.

While Panthers boss Ivan Cleary said the new interpretations were an over-correction.

"It's not the way, I don't think, we want the game as a whole to look like but it's just how it is at the moment," he said.

'It's a disaster'

And in the commentary box and the podcast seats, the criticism was even harsher.

"The breakdown of this sending players to the bin is absolutely farcical. It's gone beyond a joke. It is embarrassing," rugby league Immortal Andrew Johns said on Nine's Sunday Footy Show.

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"I don't know whose decision it is, but you need to come out and you need to say why we're doing it, and you need to show examples and show players what you want them to do with tackling techniques because this is a farce."

Four-time premiership winner Cooper Cronk said on Fox Sports the decisions were inconsistent and prompting players to fake injuries.

"The issue we've got at the moment is there are players feigning injury, feigning contact," he said.

"There's some going to the bin that shouldn't, there's some not going to the bin that should."

Alongside him on the panel, former Kangaroos halfback Greg Alexander labelled it "a disaster".

Latrell Mitchell was binned for a high shot on Melbourne's Sua Fa'alogo. (Getty Images: Robert Cianflone)

Former Broncos and Warriors winger Denan Kemp was concerned for the fans who part with cash to watch disjointed games, with the bunker regularly stopping play to penalise tackles from minutes earlier.

"Are we offering the product we promised the fans if we continue to go down this path? I don't think we are," he said on his Bloke In A Bar podcast.

"And they spend their hard-earned cash every week, in a cost of living crisis. We got all these records and we like to talk about how great we are as a game and yet are we respecting the fans by sending blokes to the bin willy-nilly like it's nothing when they're the ones making all these records happen?

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"If you say there is a problem, you should also offer a solution. And I'm yet to see the NRL go to clubs and say 'We've actually looked at a lot of technique and this is actually the safest technique to tackle with.' That's where I get frustrated."

The NRL, for its part, appeared to acknowledge "a slight overreaction".

"I get the frustration around the bunker intervening in play, that is certainly not something any of us want to see," NRL chief executive Andrew Abdo said on 2GB on Monday.

"There's probably been too many of those where that disrupts play and gets pulled back, and that's something we're going to work on."

The league is heading into a massive weekend of football in Brisbane, with the Women's State of Origin opener at Lang Park on Thursday night, before Magic Round plays out from Friday to Sunday.

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