The NRL wasn't mucking around in response to Ricky Stuart's lashing of referees over the escort rule, but they might have also created a bigger grey area.
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NRL referee boss Jared Maxwell joined head of football Graham Annesley for the weekly briefing on Monday reviewing the round's officiating decisions.
Two incidents were covered from the Raiders-Broncos clash on Saturday - Kotoni Staggs' elbow on Rapana which resulted in a one-game ban, and the "contentious" escort penalty against Canberra's Hudson Young.
Annesley said the quickness and lack of clear angles on the Staggs offence were the reasons officials did not award a penalty for the dangerous contact.
For the latter incident involving Young - which drew criticism from Stuart in the post-match press conference - Annesley introduced Maxwell to explain the ruling.
Maxwell said the emergence of short dropouts made the NRL more "proactive" in eliminating fouls, but he also put "responsibility on players" to do better to avoid penalties.
Maxwell said the touch judge, who alerted match referee Adam Gee that Young committed a foul, was looking closely at the Raider as the play unfolded. A look back by Young at oncoming Bronco Selwyn Cobbo was deemed the most incriminating factor.
"All we ask of Hudson Young is two things: one, to run directly back towards the ball, and take a position early," Maxwell said.
"That glance over his left shoulder is a strong indicator to a touch judge that the player is looking at the man as opposed to the contest.
"Then there's the change of speed and body turn to block Selwyn Cobbo and take away what potentially could be a clearer contest for Brisbane."
The NRL's head of elite officiating concluded the penalty was "spot on" because Young's actions had denied Cobbo the ability to attack the ball with two hands, changed his running line and Canberra had an advantage by ending up with the ball.
"There isn't a great deal of contact on Cobbo, however, that's not the assessment. The assessment is prior to that," Maxwell said.
Maxwell visits clubs to coach players on how not to concede penalties, and said referees had been "very consistent in how they assess" the escort rule.
The concern is now the NRL will have to uphold this level of scrutiny in applying the escort rule, where something as small as a glance can be the biggest factor, not the contact or result of the play.
"It's fair to say there's going to be a lot more penalties if that's the level of contact that you need to have where a player was impeded from jumping," Raiders chief executive Don Furner told The Canberra Times.
Annesley also refuted Stuart's press conference claims Maxwell had lost "power" to do his job.
"The NRL sets policy on what can and can't happen and it's Jared's job to implement that," Annesley said.
"If you're going to go and try and give some air cover to your catcher, go directly, take up a position and stay there. Don't pedal backwards, look at the oncoming runner, deliberately put yourself in their way, so that they don't have to run around you to try and contest the ball."
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