Graham Annesley supports the decision to suspend Will Kennedy

The National Rugby League (NRL) has issued a stark warning to clubs that violence towards referees will result in a suspension after the Sharks “reluctantly” accepted a one-week ban for fullback Will Kennedy, who was charged last week for colliding with Adam Gee.

Kennedy would have had a two-week break if he had fought the second degree misconduct charge and lost in court. Cronulla also did not want to risk losing one of its core members, as they were already missing the injured Nicho Hynes.

Many fans believe that he did nothing wrong as he tried to assist Kayal Iro in a break but ended up colliding with Gee, who had stopped in front of him.

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However, the NRL says it is the players’ responsibility to avoid physical contact, with Kennedy following the example of Melbourne’s Jahrome Hughes, who was suspended earlier this season for contact with a referee.

Many fans believe that he did nothing wrong as he tried to assist Kayal Iro in a break but ended up colliding with Gee, who had stopped in front of him.

However, the NRL says it is the players’ responsibility to avoid physical contact, with Kennedy following the example of Melbourne’s Jahrome Hughes, who was suspended earlier this season for contact with a referee.

Since Round 1, 11 incidents relating to contact with referees during matches have been investigated, five of which resulted in charges being laid and one involving the serving of a Notice of Warning to a club. The message from the NRL is clear that deterrent measures must be put in place.

“No one is suggesting that the players in any of these cases intentionally attempted to harm or disable a referee. But players have a responsibility to avoid contact with referees,” said NRL football chief Graham Annesley.

“The referee has to be somewhere, he can’t just disappear into thin air.

“We need to have rules to prevent this from happening. Most of the penalties in our game are due to unintentional actions. High tackles are not intentional. Most of the things that happen in our game are accidents and yet you get penalized for them.”

“Nobody is saying that this was intentional. But when the result is such serious contact with referees, we cannot just brush it aside and say it was an accident.

“We don’t just ignore a high tackle that hits someone directly on the legs and say it was an accident. We have players who go down in tackles, get hit high and still get tackled.”

Annesley stressed that Kennedy had done nothing intentional, but warned that measures must be taken to prevent such things from seeping into the system without sanctions.

“The referee is in his way, there is no question about that. But we can never get to a point where we allow a referee to be removed, regardless of whether he is in the way or not,” he said.

“The referee has to be somewhere on the field and he also has to be protected.

“We can’t allow the referee to get in the way. That’s why I’m going to get him out of the way. We must never let it get that far.”

“The implications of that, not just at NRL level … for anyone who has a score to settle at a local park, anywhere across the country, under the control of the commission, it’s not very difficult to get into a position where the referee is between them and the ball or a defender.

“And then suddenly there’s a collision and you think, ‘Oh, sorry, it was an accident, you were in the way.’

“We can never get that far.”

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Annesley also responded to suggestions that Dragons winger Christian Tuipulotu failed to bring the ball down in his side’s win over the Broncos, just moments after his teammate Mikaele Ravalawa was denied a try because there was no clear evidence to overturn the decision.

“I think in both cases it was entirely fair for the Bunker to say that he could not say with certainty whether a try had been scored or not,” he said.

“That’s why we let the referees make a decision on the field, because in situations like this, where you can’t say definitively whether the ball touched the ground or not, we still have to make a decision.

“It would be wrong for the bunker to have to make a guess here. The umpires are in the best position, they usually have a good view of it and make their first decision on that basis.”