THE NRL has whacked the Roosters with two breach notices worth a total $40,000 following incidents involving the referee at Allianz Stadium on Monday.

The first incident involved Roosters coach Trent Robinson allegedly approaching and harassing referee Ben Cummins in the tunnel at the end of Monday’s 20-18 loss to St George Illawarra.

In the second incident, Robinson attacked the credibility of referee Cummins in his post-match press conference.

CEO Todd Greenberg said both incidents were potential breaches of the NRL rules and the club would have seven days to respond to the breach notices.

Round 19

“We cannot stand by and allow any club to deliberately and blatantly attack our referees,” Greenberg said in a statement.

“Not only is it a breach of the rules which are there to protect our referees from abuse, but it sets a bad example to the rest of the game, particularly juniors.

“We know from experience that young people imitate their NRL heroes and attacking referees is simply not acceptable.

“We are also trying to encourage young people to become referees and public attacks like this do nothing to achieve that goal.”

According to former lead whistleblower Bill Harrigan, Robinson strayed dangerously close to defamation territory during his explosive press conference.

Speaking on Tuesday, Harrigan said that Robinson could be sued for comments made post-match.

Robinson claimed Cummins was “horrible” and “disrespectful” towards his players while noting that his side rarely wins games under the match official.

Under NRL rules coaches are forbidden to comment on the performances of match officials or the bunker.

Harrigan told Triple M’s The Grill Team said Robinson was treading a fine line.

“I haven’t heard it in it’s entirety, but I did hear some of the comments that (Trent Robinson) made about Benny Cummins and I think he’s walking the line, very closely, to a defamation suit,” he said.

“When you start defamatory remarks about a referee saying he’s biased or cheating, you’ve got to be very careful.

“When he’s also said something like ‘we can’t win under this bloke — he’s refereed us X amount of times’, that’s where you’ve got to be careful.”

Coaches who break either rule face a fine of at least $10,000.

ARLC chairman John Grant expressed his disappointment with Robinson’s comments at the naming of Mal Meninga’s first Australian side on Tuesday afternoon.

“Very disappointed. Disappointed on a number of fronts,” Grant responded when asked about the press conference rant.

“Firstly it was obviously orchestrated. There’d been conversations and there was intent and it went on for a long time.

“Disappointed because the referees didn’t lose the game for the Roosters yesterday. The Roosters lost the game for the Roosters.

“They blew 12 points in the first half through mistakes. And they didn’t take an option late in the game in the second half which could have won them the game.”

As well as taking aim at the performance of Cummins, Robinson criticised the interjections of the video bunker in general play, with Dylan Napa, Kane Evans and Eloni Vunakece all penalised and placed on report after reviews by the bunker.

Grant admitted certain decisions from the bunker have lacked in consistency across the season’s first eight rounds, but stressed that the Roosters and Robinson — a member of the NRL’s competition committee — had erred in unloading in the public forum.

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