Dolphins coach Wayne Bennett has slammed the severity of Ray Stone’s sin bin after the forward was given his marching orders in the second half on Saturday.
Stone’s high contact on Drew Hutchinson led to a major momentum shift with two tries against the Dolphins while he was off.
The Roosters ended up claiming a comprehensive 30-14 victory to keep their finals hopes alive.
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Post-game, Bennett explained he had no problems with the penalty but believed a sin bin was too harsh.
“There’s no doubt he got hit in the head, I’m not denying that for a moment, he got put on report and that’s fair enough,” he said.
“But Kodi Nikorima got hit in the head with an elbow which knocked him around too and it was just put on report and a penalty.
“The tackle that Ray was involved in … Ray was coming in to tackle him over the top but he just dropped his height, that’s one of those things that happens in the game and certainly put it on report and go from there but I thought the sin bin was way over the top.
“It has a huge impact on the game, they know the impact it has on the game and you look at games from over the weekend you’ve seen three or four different head highs and they get to stay on the field. They haven’t got it right, it’s as simple as that.”
It was a night of carnage for the Dolphins with Connelly Lemuelu, Kenny Bromwich and Hamiso Tabuai-Fidow all undergoing head injury assessments. The latter’s was in the final 10 minutes of the game while Lemuelu and Bromwich both failed theirs.
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Bennett went on to criticise the Bunker’s role in deciding HIAs after Lemuelu was also ruled out two weeks ago due to an apparent concussion in the early stages of the Bulldogs game.
“Let me talk on that for a moment, we’ve got an HIA situation which isn’t right either,” he said.
“Hamiso gets graded by the Bunker referee as a grade two but when he’s assessed by a doctor he’s a grade one.
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“The Bunker shouldn’t be giving a grading … certainly for all intent and purpose he can tell us to take someone off the field but we had Connelly in Bundaberg in the first seven minutes of the game got pulled off by the Bunker referee and the Bunker said he was a grade one, when he was assessed he was a grade two, in fact he didn’t have a concussion at all but he couldn’t go back on the field.
“Then we had to ring up on the Monday to get the grading changed, it’s not good enough.
“We’re going into the playoffs, we’re going into the best part of the season, and these things are going to have huge impacts on teams.”
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The loss to the Roosters was the Dolphins’ fourth in a row, despite going into half-time leading 8-6.
Billy Smith scored early after the break and Stone’s departure brought about tries from Joseph Suaalii and Drew Hutchison.
Hutchison had his second in the 64th minute before a Jamayne Isaako consolation try late in the game led to a 30-14 scoreline.
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