Craig Fitzgibbon has accused the NRL of launching a high-tackle crackdown on the eve of the finals, joining Ivan Cleary in raising concerns over stop-start football.
Twenty-four hours after Cleary questioned the amount of stoppages in Penrith's win over South Sydney, Fitzgibbon had his own complaints on Saturday night.
Cronulla lost Kayal Iro to the sin-bin for repeated foul play in their 30-28 loss to the Warriors, conceding two tries while down to 12 men.
It came as the Warriors avenged a 22-4 deficit to win, with Shaun Johnson the hero in his last game in the NRL before retirement.
In total Cronulla were penalised three times for high shots in the second half, prompting concerns that Warriors players wee staying down to milk penalties.
A season-high 30 penalties were blown for high tackles last weekend, adding to the 27 that were given in each of the previous two rounds.
"We’ve got to protect the players because we don’t want to see high shots. I get it, we want it out of the game," Cronulla coach Fitzgibbon said.
"But to wait until a couple of weeks before the semis to start doing a crackdown, that (second-half) period was a disaster.
"It was stop-start, stop-start, stop-start, and then gamesmanship starts to come into it.
"We’re stopping and starting game after game after game. We want to see good footy in the semis.
"This is the time of the year we should be cheering and letting the game flow."
Fitzgibbon also raised concerns over potential gamesmanship, while refusing to blame the issue on the Sharks loss after they led 22-4 at halftime.
On one occasion, Warriors winger Dallin Watene-Zelezniak stood up and refused to play-the-ball after a tackle, before a penalty was blown against Blayke Brailey.
Cooper Cronk was among those to raise the issue afterwards, suggesting players should face fines or suspensions if they are guilty of milking penalties.
"How bad are they? Are they hurt? Will they stay down?" Fitzgibbon said.
"We all know what we’re doing there, but we wait until this part of the season to start really cracking down on it."
Cronulla captain Cameron McInnes claimed he had received no warning from referee Chris Butler before Iro was sin-binned for another high shot on Rapana.
"It’s frustrating because you probably struggle to see the consistency and every tackle is different," McInnes said.
"I thought as much as he got hit in the head, there was a bit of falling of body position into it.
"As a rugby league player, you’re taught to play hard and things happen. That gamesmanship is tough to take, but at the same time it’s not an excuse for us."
