Crichton landed himself in trouble for pulling Canberra's Joseph Tapine into his celebration before tensions boiled over. The Penrith centre was slapped with a $1350 fine.<\/p>\n
But the incident also landed the Raiders in hot water, with the NRL issuing Canberra a $10,000 fine due to a club trainer being involved in the melee.<\/p>\n
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Stuart today addressed the incident, in which he criticised the Penrith players involved for acting bigger than they are due to the NRL's strong stance on no punches being allowed.<\/p>\n
"(Crichton's behaviour) was unnecessary and silly," Stuart said.<\/p>\n
"This jumper-pulling and grabbing blokes by the back of the jumper and trying to pull them out of melees is a blight on the game.<\/p>\n
"It's ugly and makes soft people very tough because you know you're not going to get a punch in the head.<\/p>\n
"There are no consequences. You've got guys who are not that courageous acting very tough going into a melee now, knowing the fact he's not going to get a punch to the mouth, which is why so many people fly into it."<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
With Penrith coming under the firing line from a number of voices out of Canberra, players opted to go with just a simple handshake<\/a> last night during the Panthers' win over the Broncos.<\/p>\n Stuart said he found last week's incident amusing when his star playmaker, Jack Wighton, came in to defuse the situation.<\/p>\n "I laughed watching it back … When our physio got pushed out of the way, Jack Wighton came in to sort it out and settle it all down and a lot of egos that were in that melee were deflated very quickly," he added.<\/p>\n "You don't find tough kids walking into these melees and pulling and pushing jumpers. If you're a good pusher nowadays you're tough, apparently."<\/p>\n But most importantly for the Canberra coach, Stuart said he hopes the NRL eventually gets a hold on the jersey-tugging melees.<\/p>\n "I just wish the league could do something about it and eradicate it," he said.<\/p>\n "It was only four or five years ago I was saying it was ugly in Aussie rules and now we've got it."<\/p>\n For a daily dose of the best of the breaking news and exclusive content from Wide World of Sports, subscribe to our newsletter by<\/strong><\/em> clicking here!<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"![\"Stephen](\"https:\/\/vms-network-images-prod.s3-ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com\/2021\/04\/352705\/pickerImage.jpg\")
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