"HOW do you tell a footballer to let go?"
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While there are many questioning Penrith's form following Saturday night's 12-8 loss to the West Tigers at Carrington Park, that was the question that Panthers coach Ivan Cleary had for the NRL.
It was a question he asked in the wake of Panthers losing hooker Soni Luke to the sinbin with 11 minutes left in Saturday's match for a hip drop on Tigers' Alex Twal.
Ultimately no points were scored while Luke was in the sinbin, but that did not ease Cleary's frustration.
He knows Luke will likely be the 16th NRL player charged for a hip drop tackle this season and face suspension.
"I've seen a few like that now and the only way you can avoid it is to let go. How do you tell a footballer to let go? That's my question," Cleary said.
"Honestly it was like Ezra Mam's last week, he got suspended. The only way he can avoid that as far as I can see is he lets go."
Cleary said that he felt many of the hip drop tackles currently being penalised - such as Luke's - do not pose a high risk of injury to the player being tackled.
But he said he felt not only for the players being penalised, but the referees having to make calls about the hip drop as well.
"Hip drops are a bit like crusher tackles, when they were first introduced they look a lot different to what they look now," Cleary said.
"Somehow we blend them all in together as the same, I just don't know how you tell a player to let go deliberately, it's just not in any players' makeup and it's just not an instinctive thing to do.
"I feel for the referees actually and whoever is making these calls because obviously they've been told and they're doing it."
When Cleary was asked what the way forward was in regards to penalising hip drop tackles, he said he there seems to be no move to change the current criteria.
"The game makes the decisions so I dunno," he said.
"I hear the same questions each week and no-one has got the answers. Yeah, I don't know."
As for Penrith captain Isaah Yeo, he also feels there needs be more discretion shown. He said it can be hard for players to be aware they're in an awkward position when tackling.
"You just have to have an awareness, I guess, but it's a split-second thing," he said.
"Like you can feel like you're in a really good position and then all of a sudden you're in a bad one just like that, so it's a hard one.
"I feel like you know the bad ones and then the 50-50 ones. The ones that really hurt someone and you can tell, they're a lot different to these little ones that are going on at the moment."
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