{"id":627624,"date":"2026-04-24T09:59:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-24T09:59:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/627624\/"},"modified":"2026-04-24T09:59:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T09:59:08","slug":"wayne-bennett-gives-advice-to-benji-marshall-on-referee-criticism-hip-drop-controversy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/627624\/","title":{"rendered":"Wayne Bennett gives advice to Benji Marshall on referee criticism, hip drop controversy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wayne Bennett believes Benji Marshall is \u201cwasting his time\u201d as the veteran NRL coach declared the sin bin is \u201coverused\u201d after the latest refereeing drama. <\/p>\n

Watch every game of every round of the NRL Premiership LIVE with no ad-breaks during play on FOX LEAGUE, available on Kayo Sports | New to Kayo? Join now and get your first month for just $1.<\/a><\/p>\n

Apisai Koroisau was sent to the bin on Thursday<\/a> and subsequently cited by the match review committee for a hip-drop tackle on Noah Martin, with the Tigers skipper facing a three-game ban given his lengthy rap sheet this season.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Marshall passionately defended Koroisau in his post-game press conference<\/a> and called out \u201cinconsistency\u201d in the refereeing this season, but Bennett had a clear message for the up-and-coming coach when asked about the comments on Friday.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just realised what a hip drop is the other day, to be honest with you. Benji is a young coach so if he\u2019s a bit confused about the rules, wait until he gets another 10 years into the job,\u201d Bennett said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf he\u2019s asking for consistency, he\u2019s wasting his time. You\u2019re never going to get that.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had a situation in the game the other night, our player goes to the sin bin for 10 minutes for a hip-drop, another player gets charged with a hip-drop but doesn\u2019t go to the bin.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was the same ref, same bunker officials and one rule for you and one rule for another person.<\/p>\n

Get all the latest NRL news, highlights and analysis delivered straight to your inbox with Fox Sports Sportmail. Sign up now!!!<\/a><\/p>\n

Marshall’s ref fury despite victory | 05:40<\/p>\n

\u201cThey (the NRL) come back with the line about, \u2018this looked worse\u2019 or whatever. The bottom line is, if you do a hip-drop tackle, are we all going to the bin or are we not?<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we\u2019re not going to the bin we keep them on the field. They don\u2019t go to the bin. But the refs aren\u2019t qualified enough and the Bunker refs to judge regarding severity, amount of pressure put on, whatever.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf they deem it to be that tackle then let\u2019s have a rule for that, you\u2019re in the bin or you\u2019re not.\u201d<\/p>\n

Api Koroisau sent to bin against Raiders | 00:31<\/p>\n

Although it sounds like if it was up to Bennett there would be far fewer players ending up in the bin.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe sin bin is the worst thing for me personally because of the inconsistencies that is applied,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt has a huge impact on games. I don\u2019t believe it\u2019s fair. We have a judiciary that does a pretty good job reviewing all the games, and they get charged the next day.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t get into my head why you can\u2019t do that the next day. Whatever you want to do, I don\u2019t care. But don\u2019t send a guy to the bin for a hip-drop and don\u2019t send another guy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bennett went on to add that the sin bin does \u201cnot\u201d have a \u201cbig place\u201d in his heart, calling it \u201cover-used\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI saw a tackle the other night (where) he got two weeks for it but he didn\u2019t end up in the bin… another guy hit somebody high, doesn\u2019t get charged and finished in the bin,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s loopy stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Wayne Bennett believes Benji Marshall is \u201cwasting his time\u201d as the veteran NRL coach declared the sin bin…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":627625,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-627624","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nrl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-national-rugby-league","tag-nationalrugbyleague","tag-nrl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627624","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=627624"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627624\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/627625"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=627624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=627624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=627624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}