{"id":594825,"date":"2026-04-09T03:51:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-09T03:51:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/594825\/"},"modified":"2026-04-09T03:51:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-09T03:51:12","slug":"nrl-news-andrew-johns-and-brad-fittler-call-for-rule-change-over-punishment-for-unintentional-act","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/594825\/","title":{"rendered":"NRL news: Andrew Johns and Brad Fittler call for rule change over punishment for ‘unintentional’ act"},"content":{"rendered":"

Andrew Johns has called for the NRL<\/a> to consider changing the rules around sin bins after a number of teams were dramatically impacted with a man on the sideline. The Raiders were helpless on the weekend when Savelio Tamale was sent for 10 minutes in the bin after interfering with Dominic Young in a try-scoring opportunity.<\/p>\n

The Raiders then conceded a number of points with Tamale in the bin as the Newcastle Knights took the game away from the visitors. The Parramatta Eels were also able to come back <\/a>into the game when Luke Laulilii tackled Bailey Simonsson in the air in an unfortunate incident.<\/p>\n

\"Andrew<\/p>\n

Andrew Johns (pictured left) believes 10 minutes in the bin is too long in the modern game. (Images: Getty Images)<\/p>\n

The tackle saw Simonsson land awkwardly and dislocate his ankle<\/a>. The Eels back was taken from the field after the horrible incident and Laulilii followed him after being sent for 10 in the bin.<\/p>\n

The Eels then scored two quick tries to get themselves back into the contest. The length of the sin bin has been debated for a number of years. However, the game is quicker than ever with the extended six again rule meaning the ball is in play for longer and more tries are being scored.<\/p>\n

Momentum swings are bigger than ever across the 80 minutes of footy and a sin bin is adding to the pressure. And Johns feels the NRL might need to look at reducing the time for certain sin-binning acts if it is going to have too much of a bearing on the result.<\/p>\n

“I think 10 minutes nowadays is too long,” he said on Channel Nine’s Freddy and the Eighth. “Any hit to the head that isn’t a send off, I have no problem with 10 minutes (in the sin bin), but I just think a professional foul now is five minutes.” Johns added: “During that time, Newcastle scored two tries…10 minutes is too long now.”<\/p>\n

Luke Laulilii sin bin divides NRL fans<\/p>\n

Roosters legend Brad Fittler felt Laulilii was unfortunate to spend 10 minutes on the sideline. Laulilii went up for the ball at the same time as Simonsson, but then grabbed hold of him when he lost the contest. Simonsson dislocated his ankle upon landing and the referee deemed Laulilii’s tackle in mid-air was worthy of a sin bin.<\/p>\n

Johns felt it was Laulilii’s natural instinct to grab Simonsson in the air. “If you go up for a bomb (like Laulilii did) and you don’t get it, your natural instinct is to grab hold of something. It is not intentional,” Johns continued.<\/p>\n

Fittler felt the Wests Tigers winger shouldn’t have been sent to the bin, which will see him miss this weekend’s game due to suspension. “I didn’t think that was a sin bin, I thought that was horribly unlucky,” Fittler said.<\/p>\n

“He went up to compete for the ball, the Parramatta player (Bailey Simonsson) got inside him in a better position … his hands just wrapped around him. What are you supposed to do? I don’t think he did anything to worsen the position of the Parramatta player.” There has been talks for some time about a five minute sin bin to reduce the time a team is penalised.<\/p>\n

\"Referee<\/p>\n

Andrew Johns feels 10 minutes in the bin is now too long in the current game.<\/p>\n

(Cameron Spencer via Getty Images)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Andrew Johns has called for the NRL to consider changing the rules around sin bins after a number…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":594826,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[290352,48257,64,63,218263,220536,761,762,4495,158,9112,85,27096,44448],"class_list":{"0":"post-594825","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nrl","8":"tag-10-minutes","9":"tag-andrew-johns","10":"tag-au","11":"tag-australia","12":"tag-bailey-simonsson","13":"tag-luke-laulilii","14":"tag-national-rugby-league","15":"tag-nationalrugbyleague","16":"tag-newcastle-knights","17":"tag-nrl","18":"tag-parramatta-eels","19":"tag-sports","20":"tag-the-eels","21":"tag-the-raiders"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/594825","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=594825"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/594825\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/594826"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=594825"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=594825"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=594825"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}