{"id":64636,"date":"2025-08-13T08:34:12","date_gmt":"2025-08-13T08:34:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/64636\/"},"modified":"2025-08-13T08:34:12","modified_gmt":"2025-08-13T08:34:12","slug":"bellamy-cleary-square-off-over-controversial-penalty-tries-nrl-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/64636\/","title":{"rendered":"Bellamy, Cleary square off over controversial penalty tries – NRL News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Melbourne Storm<\/a> head coach Craig Bellamy<\/a> has suggested Penrith Panthers<\/a> boss Ivan Cleary<\/a> should write to the NRL<\/a> and ask for a rule change if he feels so strongly about the penalty try controversy.<\/p>\n

The two coaches have taken differing angles on the issue this week, with their two clubs to meet on Thursday evening in the Round 24 opener.<\/p>\n

In what is a crunch Round 24 game with enormous top-four ramifications, Penrith can move further clear of the New Zealand<\/a> Warriors in the race for a second bite at the cherry in the finals.<\/p>\n

Having to do it in Melbourne creates a headache for the Panthers, but so too, in the opinion of Cleary, does the recent penalty try epidemic for players being tackled in the air.<\/p>\n

The most recent came over the weekend when Tyrell Sloan<\/a> was ruled to have illegally stopped Cronulla forward Teig Wilton<\/a> from scoring – a decision that was blasted by fans of both clubs in the aftermath.<\/p>\n

\u00bb Four weeks to go: Every NRL team’s run home, predicted final ladder<\/a><\/p>\n

Cleary said the height of Melbourne’s star State of Origin<\/a> winger Xavier Coates<\/a> could give Melbourne an advantage in the game while admitting on Tuesday that he believed the rule had gone too far.<\/p>\n

\u201cI’m not comfortable,\u201d Cleary told reporters when asked his thoughts on the rule in its current interpretation.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it’s one of those ones where the rule was originally made, we tend to forget why it was made, and we drift off and it becomes something else.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat rule is all about player safety. That’s why it was brought in.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think some of the ones you’ve seen have nothing to do with safety, so I think there’s a little bit of common sense needed around that rule.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs long as it’s deemed safe, I think you should at least get the opportunity to try to stop a try in that situation. But that’s not going to happen now, so we’ve got to deal with it the best way we can.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnyone who matches up against some of these wingers, including Xavier, it’s a tough ask. But there are many ways that we can try to combat things like that.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe best way is to not let them down there too often.\u201d<\/p>\n

Adding to the headache for Cleary is that Brian To’o<\/a> is currently set to match up against Coates, giving up a 12-centimetre height advantage.<\/p>\n

But Bellamy said his side aren’t breaking any rules, and that Cleary should write to the NRL<\/a> to ask for a change.<\/p>\n

“That’s the rules, doesn’t matter what I think,” Bellamy said.<\/p>\n

“It doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks.<\/p>\n

“It’s the guys who are making the rules. It’s the rules.<\/p>\n

“If he wants to put in an application to get the rules changed, let him do it. But again I’m not going to worry about that – they’re the rules that’s what we got to play to.”<\/p>\n

Bellamy couldn’t be drawn for comment on whether he thinks the rules were doing enough to protect players.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Melbourne Storm head coach Craig Bellamy has suggested Penrith Panthers boss Ivan Cleary should write to the NRL…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":33486,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-64636","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\/64636","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=64636"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64636\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33486"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}