The Bunker has come under heavy scrutiny over the last couple of weeks thanks to the NRL’s high shot crackdown.
NRL boss Graham Annesley has since admitted officials sent too many players to the sin-bin recently for head-high tackles.
I’ve made my feelings pretty clear before about letting penalties stay as penalties—not automatic sin-bins, suspensions, or worse—and about the need to consider different circumstances before making big calls.
Take, for example, an attacking player who drops at the last second. If a defender is already committed to the tackle, how exactly is he supposed to magically adjust in a split second and avoid contact with the head?
But the way the NRL is operating, it seems they’re more interested in penalising any and every bit of contact with the head, no matter how minimal, unavoidable, or accidental it might be.
The game has drifted into a black-and-white mindset where certain situations should really remain grey—and where discretion and discernment should be trusted to the on-field referee, and at times, the bunker officials.
You can see the same problem in how they adjudicate obstructions.
If an attacking player catches the ball on the inside shoulder of a lead runner, it’s automatically ruled an obstruction, regardless of whether the defender was actually impeded or not. Sometimes the defender falls over after minimal contact, or even when it was the defender who initiated the contact—and yet the attacking team is still penalised, and often a try is taken away.
And of course, the high tackle debate has been front and centre this week: any touch to the head is penalised and in too many cases, sin-binned, regardless of whether it’s a full-blown hit or the lightest of brushes—and no matter whether the defender had a genuine chance to avoid it.
Some rules need to stay grey. In footy, as in life, blanket rules can’t cover every circumstance.
There are so many different factors to weigh up: intent, timing, force, positioning, and whether an action was truly avoidable. Discernment is critical.
It’s about looking at the whole picture and making a call based on the context, not just ticking boxes.
Sure, it won’t always be popular, and sometimes it might still be wrong—but making every call black and white is definitely not the answer.
It actually reminds me of something we see in the Catholic faith.
When the church teaches about modesty, for example, it doesn’t hand down rigid dress codes or universal rules. Instead, the Catechism of the Catholic Church says that modesty “protects the intimate centre of the person.”
It’s about the dignity of the human person—how someone dresses, speaks, acts, and carries themselves. It’s not about avoiding shame but rather, promoting dignity.
But even there, the church recognises that circumstances matter. Different cultures and different individual circumstances all play a role.
The principle remains the same, but applying it requires wisdom, not rigid enforcement.
Footy could learn a lesson here: principles are important—player safety is vital—but good discernment, not hard-and-fast rules, is what ultimately leads to justice.