NRL 2026: Why the NRL won’t change its hip-drop rulings, Mitch Kenny, Lachlan Galvin

The NRL has defended the wide-ranging sanctions it has handed down for hip-drop offences in recent weeks – confirming it won’t be making changes to the current rules.

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The controversial hip-drop was a huge focal point across Round 4 of the NRL. It left Penrith’s Ivan Cleary questioning inconsistencies around what constitutes a hip-drop, while others have called for a simple blanket ban after huge discrepancies in the suspensions handed to offending players.

An NRL spokesman confirmed to foxsports.com.au that there would be no revisions to the hip-drop ruling in 2026, doubling down on the same three primary indicators to determine the severity of an offence: grip, rotation and the severity of the drop.

Additionally, the NRL spokesman reiterated that officials took into account the injury incurred to an opposing player in the event of a hip-drop action.

It helps explains why match officials handed down wide-ranging sanctions for different hip-drops in recent weeks. In the same afternoon, Canterbury’s Lachlan Galvin gave away a straight-forward penalty for his hip-drop on Mathew Croker, while Panthers player Mitch Kenny was sin-binned and received a one-week ban over his hip-drop on Isaiah Iongi; an offence which sidelined the Eels fullback for eight weeks. A week earlier, Ryan Couchman copped a sin-bin and subsequent four-week ban over a hip-drop which ended J’Maine Hopgood’s season.

The inconsistencies have drawn the ire of many in the game. Speaking on SEN radio on Tuesday, Bryan Fletcher called out the discrepancies between suspensions for Couchman and Kenny.

“Neither player means to do it. It needs to be a blanket ban for hip-drops,” he argued.

Elsewhere, Parramatta coach Jason Ryles warned the hip-drop would become more frequent as result of increased fatigue being introduced into the game. One of the NRL’s most respected medicos, Paul Bloomfield, told foxsports.com.au that he didn’t believe there was sufficient data yet to substantiate that claim.

Rather than addressing specific incidents, the NRL has directed foxsports.com.au to a 2024 briefing from its manager of football, Graham Annesley. The seven-minute video explains the three primary indicators which match officials use to determine penalties and subsequent match bans.

“The first indicator is that the tackler has a grip on attacking player, and that can be with one hand or two,” Annesley explained.

“Secondly, that their body rotates to some degree or their body swings to a position behind or to the side of the attacker.

“The third one, which is probably the most important in relation to penalty – and when I say penalty, I don’t mean the referee blowing their whistle for a penalty, but whether it is a penalty or the player is placed on report, whether the player is sent to the sin bin or whether a player is sent off – is the drop. That is, the tackler putting their body weight directly – and directly is a really important word – onto the player’s legs.

“They’re the three pretty simple indicators but how they get applied is important, and how the match officials and the match review committee deal with them does get a little more complicated.”

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Ivan Cleary was visibly frustrated following Mitch Kenny’s sin-bin against the Eels on Saturday, and was adamant that Kenny’s tackle didn’t meet the hip-drop criteria.

“It was a one-man tackle against a very fast, powerful player. At the time, I actually thought ‘what a great tackle’,” Cleary said.

“I’ll go back to when the hip-drop was first introduced, and it was totally different to that. But somehow someone has changed the laws.

“I don’t know who did it, but ultimately it feels like we’ve gone back to if there’s a body, someone killed him.”

While Cleary believes the definition of a hip-drop tackle has changed in recent years, the NRL argued that it hasn’t — again pointing this masthead to Annesley’s explainer, in which he gets down to a granular level on rulings.

“Hip-drops are not all treated the same for exactly the same reason that not all high tackles are treated the same,” Annesley explained.

“When you start to look at players leaving the field – either for 10 minutes or for the remainder of the game – you’re starting to look for moderate to high levels of force, moderate to high risk of injury, perhaps no mitigation (so nothing could have happened in the tackle to contribute other than the actions of the defender), and it could have been a reckless action.

“When you get to send-off and a player being dismissed entirely, it’s generally highly reckless or intentional, a very high level of force, a high risk of injury and the absence of mitigation – so the player had it all under their own control, there was no other factors that played into it.

“Those four categories off assessment that take place, they take place very quickly by the match officials. They try to make that assessment on the run, the bunker gets a little bit longer and of course the match review committee (MRC) can take as long as they want.

“The MRC, regardless of the actions taken on the field, is not compelled to back that action up.

“No action, action, penalty, on-report, sin-bin and send-off are the levels they go through in trying to determine what action should be taken.

“Not all incidents are the same, not all incidents are treated the same, and we will get these variations of outcome. The match officials won’t always be right in how they apply their judgement,” Annesley concluded.

“But in most of them, there is a case to support the action taken by the match officials.”