Former Canberra Raiders captain Alan Tongue has called on the NRL to consider introducing a five-minute sin bin to reduce the number of professional fouls in the game.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
The amount of penalties conceded per game has increased dramatically in the first three rounds of the competition compared to last season.
Teams such as the Sydney Roosters and the Gold Coast Titans are willing to back their defence and stifle attacking sides when they are on their own try line.
A perfect example was in the Titans' 24-12 win over the Raiders last Sunday night whey they collected the two premiership points despite being on the wrong end of a 15-8 penalty count.
Tongue - who commentated on the game for ABC Radio - said bringing in a five-minute sin bin for players who continued to re-offend would be the perfect solution to solving the problem.
"There's some times where there's repeated offences where it probably isn't a 10-minute sin bin where it hurts your team for that much,'' Tongue said.
"It's not a great look for the game.
"The players are playing within the rules and that's sportsmanship and that's what goes on - the smart players know what to do and get away with it.
"A five-minute period where it gives the opposition a chance to have two sets, maybe three, on the opposition, I think it's a really good thing and something worth looking at.''
NRL legend Darren Lockyer, who is on the NRL rules committee, said the tactic of teams deliberately conceding penalties on their own line was ''not in the fabric of the game'', while Eels great Peter Sterling raised the issue when he called the Roosters' win over the Broncos for Channel Nine last Friday night.
The Raiders were fuming when Titans centre Brad Takairangi attempted an intercept when he was well off-side before throwing the ball away to buy his side more time.
The Titans were able to reset their defensive line and hold out the Raiders.
Tongue said the tactic could be copied much in the same way as the unsightly wrestling in the ruck so successfully employed by the Melbourne Storm.
"Even [Knights coach] Wayne Bennett hates that part of the game, but everyone has wrestling coaches because you have to keep up with the game,'' Tongue said.
"They push it to the nth degree and they control the ruck so well.
"With the seven-tackle rule and quick taps, a lot of teams are doing whatever they can to slow the play-the-ball down.''
Former Test halfback Greg Alexander said it was a difficult matter to address as it was tough to determine what an appropriate punishment for the team committing the penalty was.
However, he warned against forming judgments about an aspect of the game this early in the season.
"If the trend continues, maybe then, but I wouldn't want to be jumping on something after round three,'' Alexander said.
"I don't know if they have to introduce anything. I'm happy with how it is at the moment.
''I would want to see the competition run a bit longer and see if trends do continue and then talk about ways to maybe fix what has become a problem, but not after three rounds.''
Alexander cited the example of the Knights losing the penalty count 15-8 and also going down in the game against the Melbourne Storm on Monday night as an example of how it worked against the team by using that tactic.
