Super League coaches to meet RFL over sin-binnings and suspensions

Speaking after his side’s 36-24 defeat at Huddersfield Giants, Castleford Tigers coach Lee Radford revealed the meeting will take place on Wednesday with just one topic on the agenda.

A thrilling encounter at John Smith’s stadium featured four sin-binnings, with two players on each team being yellow carded.

Both coaches admitted those decisions had a major bearing on the game, which was decided by a Ricky Leutele hat-trick after Tigers had hit back from 18-0 at half-time down to lead 24-18 with a quarter of the contest remaining.

“The influence they are having on the game is significant,” said Radford of the cards in Saturday’s game.

Referencing an RFL official’s recent comparison between the sport and netball, he added: “If you are a neutral I think it will be great watching, but we are promoting blokes to roll all over the floor when there’s any contact with the head and if that’s the look for the sport and what it wants moving forward, we will be in netball outfits by the time we’ve finished.”

His opposite number Ian Watson felt the sin-binnings were “harsh” and insisted results should not be decided by the number of players remaining on the field.

“You need to win the game the right way,” he said. “We want the players to decide the game – you don’t want the game to be 12 versus 11. At the moment we are getting a lot of sin-binnings. We are talking about the wrong things, we need to be talking about the quality on show, someone like Ricky Leutele turning up and doing what he did at the end of the game to win it.”