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In short:
NRL football boss Graham Annesley says making accidental contact with a referee does not excuse the action, after a player was banned for the latest such incident this season.
Cronulla full-back Will Kennedy ran into referee Adam Gee in the Sharks' win over Wests Tigers — he has accepted a one-match ban for the offence.
What's next?:
Due to a Cronulla bye, Kennedy will not be eligible to return until round 22 against the Rabbitohs.
Graham Annesley says the NRL had a responsibility to match officials around the country to ban Cronulla fullback Will Kennedy for running into referee Adam Gee.
Kennedy on Monday reluctantly accepted a one-match ban for colliding with Gee in a win over Wests Tigers, after the referee stopped in front of him.
The Sharks' custodian is the fifth player to be charged and second to be suspended for referee contact this year, with his incident by far the most controversial.
Cronulla legend Paul Gallen labelled the charge "insane" on the weekend, given Kennedy was sprinting in support play and did not intend to collect Gee.
Annesley conceded on Monday that the incident was accidental, but was adamant the NRL had to ban Kennedy to protect all referees.
"We can never get to a stage where we make it permissible to move a referee out of the way, regardless of if he is in the way or not," the NRL's head of football said.
"The ramifications of that … (would carry to) anyone with an axe to grind in a local park
"It's not very hard to get yourself into a position where you can have the referee between you and the ball or a defender.
"And the next thing you know is there is a collision, and 'oh sorry, it was an accident'.
"They would say 'you don't get in trouble for hitting the referee in the NRL, why am I getting charged for hitting a referee in the local park?'
"We can never get to that stage."
With Cronulla centre Kayal Iro breaking down field, Gee shuffled a few steps to the side and then stopped in front of Kennedy.
But Annesley argued that only Kennedy was responsible for the contact, given he was running from behind Gee and the referee could not possibly have seen him.
And the NRL's football boss was adamant the contact being accidental was not an excuse.
"We have to have rules in place that discourage it from happening," Annesley said.
"Most charges in our game are for accidental actions. High tackles are not deliberate.
"We don't just set aside a high tackle that hits someone right across the chops and we say it was an accident.
"No one is saying this is deliberate. But when the outcome is heavy contact like this on match officials, then we can't just set it aside for saying it is accidental."
Kennedy's ban leaves Cronulla in a delicate position at fullback for their round-21 clash with North Queensland.
Back-up number one Kade Dykes is out for the season, while their other alternative in Daniel Atkinson is already filling in at number six with Nicho Hynes out injured.
AAP
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