Tigers ask NRL to explain discrepancy in Leilua, Mitchell bans – Sydney Morning Herald

Both Annesley and the NRL match review committee believe Mitchell was provoked by Reynolds kicking a teammate in the head.
They do not believe Leilua was provoked, although his defenders reckon he was unhappy with a high shot on his brother Luciano earlier in the second half.
Latrell Mitchell hits Josh Reynolds high after the Tigers playmaker inadvertently kicked Campbell Graham in the head while going for the ball.Credit:Channel Nine
Annesley detailed the difference between the two incidents at his weekly briefing.
“In the case of Joey Leilua – it was a different type of incident,” Annesley said. “A player who was literally a bystander was hit quite high. It was obviously off the ball and that player was an innocent bystander. He hadn’t done anything to aggravate the situation. All of that is taken into consideration.
“With Latrell Mitchell, it was a different type of action. It was more of a swinging arm, more of a striking action, rather than a high-tackle-type action.
“They are different and consequently, the match review committee viewed them differently and the attributes of those tackles differently.
“They’re not the same. It’s quite easy to say that they’re the same but they’re not. If you break them down, you can very quickly see that they’re not the same.”
Annesley would have liked to have seen both Mitchell and Reynolds sent to the sin bin for the incident.
The other major controversial moment of the weekend’s matches involved the bunker recommending Bailey Simonsson be sent to the sin for a “professional foul” on Josh Addo-Carr as the pair chased a loose ball during Canberra’s clash with Melbourne.
The bunker failed to recognise that neither player had any intention of taking one another out and had all eyes for the ball.
The decision was a howler and if Annesley had more than three bunker officials at his disposal, he would have given Steve Chiddy a week off.
“We don’t have a luxury of a lot of people that can do this and there is no point taking people out of that role to put someone else in who has less capability to do the job,” Annesley said.
“We will get more errors. Yeah, we do need to train more and there are a few guys – people like Ash Klein and Ben Cummins and a few others – who are closer to the end of their careers as referees than they are the start of it.
“Some of them have worked in the bunker before and they will be ideal people to come into the bunker when their on-field careers are finished but we just don’t have the luxury of numbers at the moment.”

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