Ricky Stuart is pleading for Hudson Young to be treated fairly after his sin-binning in Canberra's 28-12 win over Newcastle left the prized Raiders back-rower facing a potential suspension.
Young was sent for 10 minutes for a late shot on Knights captain Kalyn Ponga in front of a 22,378 crowd at McDonald Jones Stadium on Thursday.
Prop Emre Guler was also placed on report for a hip-drop tackle in an impressive Canberra victory and he and Young could be facing suspension when the NRL’s match review committee hand down their charges on Friday.
Young's hit on Ponga looked a lot worse in slow-motion but Stuart is hoping NRL bosses will show some "discretion" and see that his sin-binning was sufficient punishment.
“What was the sin-binning for, pushing?” Stuart said.
“The buzz word is discretionary isn’t it? So it was a discretionary decision.
“But he shouldn’t have even been (sin-binned).. I mean, penalise him.
"If we are going to start penalising people for that we are going to be playing a lot of games with 12.
“But if that is a sin-binning offence and that is a week off then it has got to be consistent every week and every game... but it won’t be.
Young's indiscretion was the only thing that took away from a solid away win for Canberra who were dogged throughout.
"It's only game one but all our pre-season and hard work was showcased tonight," Stuart said.
Halfback Jamal Fogarty nudged a penalty to put the gritty Raiders 2-0 up inside the opening 20 minutes.
It fell to reigning Dally M medallist Ponga to weave some magic for a lifelesss Knights outfit and he set up Tyson Gamble under the posts.
The celebrations were short-lived, however, with replays showing Ponga went through a gap that was in part created after Raiders hooker Danny Levi had been taken out illegally.
As Ponga’s run was shown on the screen, the Newcastle crowd clamoured for action after it was shown Young had whacked their fullback late.
Referee Todd Smith sent Young to the sin-bin but the Raiders retained the initial penalty and scored on the following set when Zac Hosking claimed a Fogarty bomb and touched down.
Newcastle quickly hit back, Tyson Frizell running through the gap Young ought to have been standing in to cut the Raiders’ lead to 8-6 at the halftime break.
Levi crashed over soon after the match resumed to open up an eight-point lead for the Green Machine.
And from there the Raiders kicked on, with tries in the final 15 minutes from Xavier Savage, Jordan Rapana and Young securing the club's first opening-round win since the 2019 season.
“Our game lacked any sort of grit,” said Knights coach Adam O’Brien.
“I felt we wanted the highlight reel and the other mob - they came here wanting to get into a scrap, and we didn’t.
“We got a lesson in what wins games in the first month of footy.”
