Canberra captain Elliott Whitehead says fines dished out by the NRL’s judiciary are “getting outrageous” after teammate Jordan Rapana was stung for a third week in a row.
Rapana was slapped with a $ 3,000 (US$1,944) fine for an attempted trip on Selwyn Cobbo as the Brisbane winger scored a try in their 29-18 win against the Raiders, despite making minimal contact.
That makes it $9000 worth of fines for Rapana in the last three weeks, hit with separate $ 3,000 penalties for using his knees in a tackle on Canterbury’s Viliame Kikau and for another trip on Melbourne’s Reimis Smith.
Rapana has racked up a $15,000 fine tab to go with eight games worth of suspensions in the last two seasons, Whitehead suggesting monetary penalties for footballing incidents might not be the correct course of action.
“They’re getting a bit outrageous them fines, especially for the one on the weekend, there’s not much in there … to get $3000 again is pretty harsh to be honest,” he said.
“I don’t know what they do with the money they take from you; if you’re taking $9000 off someone, there’s not very much wage left come the end of the month.
“Maybe they have to look at something different there because, obviously, he’s not learning; he keeps getting fined week in, week out.
“It’s probably hurting him and his family more than anything.”
Some have suggested that Rapana’s reputation might have been a determining factor when the bunker intervened and sent him to the sin bin.
It couldn’t have come at a more critical time with the Raiders trailing 20-18, Brisbane scoring again to put the game to bed while they had the player advantage.
Whitehead agreed Rapana’s reputation wouldn’t have helped him but said it still shouldn’t have seen him sent for 10 minutes due to the light contact.
“Maybe, but obviously, they looked at it in the bunker, and there was nothing in it; if he did touch him, he barely touched him, he still scored the try,” he said.
“It was a big call on the night … it probably didn’t help our momentum when he got sin binned.
“(And) to keep getting fined $3000, it does hurt, I’m sure anybody out there with a normal job got fined three grand (would agree), it hurts.”
