Wakefield Trinity head coach Daryl Powell has called for changes in the rules around the usage of the 18th man, slamming the decision for it not to be activated after Seth Nikotemo was unable to return against Leigh Leopards as ‘nonsense’.
Nikotemo was dumped on his shoulder by Leigh’s Lachlan Lam just before half time with the second-row unable to feature in the second stanza and whilst Lam was penalised, Wakefield were not able to activate their 18th man.
It’s something that Daryl Powell claimed wouldn’t have allowed his side to win with the Trinity coach very complimentary of Leigh for their 26-10 win, however, Powell took aim at the rules and how they are policed.
Admitting that his side were down on troops after Matty Storton’s early knee injury and the shoulder knock to Nikotemo, Powell argued: “I felt that we should have been able to use our 18th man when Seth gets dumped on his shoulder there.
“Allegedly, you can’t do that which I think is wrong because it (was) foul play so it doesn’t make sense to me.”
Daryl Powell hits out at ‘nonsense’ 18th man rule following Wakefield Trinity defeat
The rules around an 18th man being activated say that they can be activated if a team suffer two failed HIAs or if a player sustains a serious match-ending injury within a foul and the player who committed the foul is either sin-binned or sent off.
Because Liam Moore took no further action other than just awarding a penalty, the conditions for 18th man Mathieu Cozza to be activated were not met and Powel took issue with that.
Speaking post-match, he said: “You shouldn’t have to be put in the bin (for the 18th man to activate), if someone has got injured and it’s foul play. That was nonsense which is something we have to see a fair bit with the rules at times.
“That hurt us because we had two blokes sat on their backsides, one through foul play but we couldn’t do anything about it. We might as well have sent our 18th man on.”
The game itself was relatively free-flowing with that incident between Lam and Nikotemo being one of the only major stoppages in play in the first half and Powell queried why it’s the case that play-off matches are officiated differently.
He said: “I asked the question, are we trying to go through the whole game without a penalty and that was both ways. You don’t want to see a lot of penalties but sometimes when it gets to this time of year, you’re letting some things go.”
Just three penalties were awarded all game which is in stark contrast to the side’s most recent Super League meeting in Round 14 when 17 penalties were awarded.
Concluding, Powell said: “I thought we should have been able to use our 18th man. It’s a ridiculous way of policing the law. Foul play is foul play, whether it’s a sin bin or not.
“I don’t think that we would have won the game anyway, using our 18th man wasn’t going to help us win the game but we talk about player welfare and then we fight against it at times.”
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