It happens so often it might be cliché to call an Origin ending controversial, especially when it comes down to the wire in a grandstand finish, but this year's one highlights a sadly increasing occurrence.

Players are simply not penalised heavily enough for a professional foul.

There's nobody who could say that Josh Addo-Carr would have definitely scored were he not impeded in those dying minutes, but when the penalty for a professional foul is 10 minutes in the bin, and there's only 3 minutes left on the clock, well, it doesn't take a genius to figure out that maybe it's not such a bad deal.

This happens a lot more than just in Origin, and in fairness, cracking down on penalties on the tryline has been a focus of refereeing efforts this year.

But maybe it's time for a rethink on what it means to award a penalty try, or what it means to inadvertently encourage professional fouls.

Even though the season's over, the NRL is never out of the news for long. There's a couple of court cases ongoing - we've got coverage of both of them you can check out in the links below (you may need to be a subscriber to one of our fabulous newspapers to read them, though).

Player movements, signings, and so on and so forth are also on the rise.

If not for the valiant efforts of the Broncos, the Bulldogs would have finished the season at the bottom of the ladder. They've begun taking some steps to rectify this with the signing of former Dubbo junior Matt Burton, and also treating the aforementioned Addo-Carr to a red carpet tour.

The Burton play won't pay off until 2022 but good on them, it's a long way back from the bottom.

*This edition of Tackle Count was written by Mitchell Vleeskens.

The footy news you can't afford to miss