The Penrith Panthers have come out against the monster NRL fine after the league deemed the club had stopped the semi-final illegally.
The Penrith Panthers have pleaded innocence over the game stoppage drama that has seen the club fined $25,000 and a trainer banned from on field duties for the remainder of the season.
No sooner than the Panthers had claimed an 8-6 win to knock the Parramatta Eels out of the NRL finals and move through to a preliminary final against the Melbourne Storm, questions began to be asked over a moment late in the game.
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Late in a low-scoring match, the Eels were in attacking range when referee Ashley Klein stopped the game with Panther hooker Mitch Kenny down in back play following an awkward tackle on Eels forward Reagan Campbell-Gillard.
Penrith trainer Pete Green requested that play be stopped before getting to the player to assess the injury, allowing the Panthers to reset their defensive line and halt the Eels’ momentum as they searched for a matchwinning try.
Last year the Eels had a similar situation against the Storm when a trainer stopped the match for former Melbourne winger Suliasi Vunivalu, who had cramp with the Eels on a roll. Klein was also the referee in that match.
According to the NRL Laws & Interpretations, trainers can only stop play if there are genuine safety concerns.
On Tuesday, the NRL confirmed that Green had been suspended for the remainder of the 2021 season, meaning he will not feature in Saturday’s preliminary final against the Melbourne Storm. The club was also fined $25,000.
The NRL has also issued a warning Penrith’s blue shirt trainer Hayden Knowles for his role in the controversial stoppage.
But speaking to the Sydney Morning Herald, Knowles hit back at the accusations, saying “this is not cheating” as the training staff believed the player had broken his ankle.
Kenny was ruled out for the remainder of the season and his ankle was reportedly so swollen that some of his toes had started to turn black.
“How can you argue with a medical opinion from someone who was standing there fearing he had just seen a player break his ankle?” Knowles said.
“Because the play was stopped at such a big moment in a big game, the whole world has turned on the one trainer. He was doing his job.
“Mitch Kenny’s ankle is like a balloon and black. Even between his toes are black – the bleeding has run all the way down the side of his feet to his toes.
“Mitch’s character is you get back and defend. But he couldn’t. There was no way he could have. He didn’t stay down. And how can you argue otherwise? Who knows more than Pete Green in this situation?
“If the same thing happened again you would get the same outcome.”
As expected, the players got behind their trainer with Jerome Luai saying Green “did the right thing”, while Kurt Capewell said he wasn’t thinking of the game situation.
“I think the NRL has rules in place to stop people abusing those situations, but Greeny wasn’t thinking like that,” Capewell told reporters. “He’s all about the welfare of the player and you could see that on the weekend.”
Part of the issue stems from the fact that it was Green’s second strike for an early stoppage, as trainers need to carry out an initial assessment before asking for the game to be stopped.
Speaking on Fox League’s NRL 360 on Monday, Paul Kent explained why pundits were ripping into Green.
“Rather than run on and assess Kenny like he’s supposed to, and then tell the referee he needs the game stopped, he actually ran up the sideline … to the linesman where he’s saying, ‘Stop the game, stop the game’,” Kent said. “He was 30 metres away (from Kenny).
“When you twist an ankle, you don’t stop the game.
“His priority was not to get to the injured player; it was to go up the sideline and tell the touch judge to stop the game.”
Similarly Channel 9’s Phil Gould slammed the call as well.
“How often this year have we seen trainers running on and stopping the game?” Gould said on 100% Footy. “It‘s been a blessing because the score’s been 50-0 a lot of the time and we wanted the game to stop. We were sick of watching it. But we’ve allowed it to go on to the point that at a crucial game in a final.
“Pete Green runs on the field, ‘Stop, stop, stop! He’s got to stop’. Why? ‘Well he’s got a bindi in his shoe.’
“This is where we get to if we listen to the fans and if people who don’t know how to implement the rules implement them. Then we allow the referees to run their own race.
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