Nelson Asofa-Solomona has escaped suspension following a dangerous high shot, despite the NRL's head of football stating the Melbourne Storm prop should have been sent to the sin bin.
The Kiwi international has instead been fined $1,000, with his hit to the back of Eels forward Makahesi Makatoa labelled as a Grade 1 high tackle charge after he entered an early guilty plea on Monday.
In an initial statement, the NRL's match review committee explained that the contact was not of a serious nature, due to Makatoa falling back into the tackle.
"The player's actions were deemed as careless whilst the risk of injury was assessed as low with Makatoa getting to his feet and playing the ball quickly," review committee chairman Luke Patten said.
"There was a clear and quick drop in height from Makatoa as he is tackled by two other Storm players.
"This mitigating factor was taken into account when assessing the final grading."
However, NRL head of football Graham Annesley has now admitted that this original assessment was incorrect, declaring that the hit deserved a Grade 2 charge along with a maximum two-week ban.
"We think that the referee should have put Nelson in the sin-bin for the incident," Annesley said.
"We are confident that the match review committee have been through the right process.
"But we don't think that they've placed enough emphasis on the degree of force.
"Management were of the view that the level of force was more than [low/moderate].
"And we think that that level of force was enough to push the charge into the Grade 2 category.
"The match review committee felt that [it was] Grade 1 and we disagree with them on this count.”
Under a new set of rules, NRL chairman Peter V'landys and chief executive Andrew Abdo are allowed to ask the review committee to review incidents that are yet to be charged.
In this situation, however, they are not able to ask the committee to review the incident since Asofa-Solomona has already been charged, meaning his Grade 1 fine stands.
