Improvements to the NRL judiciary, match review committee and charging system have been confirmed by the Australian Rugby League Commission (ARLC), in a bid to make the process more consistent and easier to understand.
The officiating of the game off the field has been finetuned to adhere to concerns from players and coaches.
The judiciary will expand with former coaches and ex-referees now eligible to be members, while the judiciary chairman will have final say on the verdict if the call isn’t unanimous and provide a report to the impacted club in a bid to be more transparent.
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The pool of available match review committee members will also be expanded with former coaches and former referees now eligible to join.
The NRL CEO and ARLC Commission have the power to push the MRC to review an incident for charging they had missed, while the MRC manager will have the casting vote on whether a charge is issued, if there is a deadlock.
When it comes to charges and penalties, the existing system has been scrapped, with every player to begin 2022 on a clean slate with player records reset on a rolling 12-month period following their latest offence, although players serving suspensions from last season will be required to complete their existing suspensions.
The statement from the NRL reads: “All grade one offences will carry a fine except for a reckless high tackle, which is effectively treated as starting at an equivalent of a Grade 4, following on from careless high tackles.
“The number of offences will be streamlined into eight categories. Players who enter an early guilty plea will be eligible to have their suspensions reduced by one week. Additional guidance and video libraries of examples of each category and grading will be made available.
“The changes will add more diverse experience to the decision making panels, simplify sanctions and reduce anomalies where players received significantly different penalties for similar offences because of carry over points. In particular, to ensure consistency, a decision tree with video examples will be used for each type of offence by the Match Review Committee. The process will be easier to understand and more transparent.”
The changes will be effective from round one of the 2022 season.
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