Are NRL judiciary penalties harsh enough for repeat offenders?

When you think about repeat on-field offenders in the NRL, Apisai Koroisau's name is not one that rockets to the top of the list.

But in eight rounds of 2026, he now has four offences on his record and will be walking a tightrope for the remainder of the season.

He paid the price as well during Thursday night's clash against the Canberra Raiders. The Tigers might have won, but his hip drop tackle was judged to be of a Grade 2 nature by the NRL's match review committee, and he is now facing a number of weeks on the sideline.

The former New South Wales representative has been in superb form for the Tigers as they have rocketted towards the top of the competition, but the joint-venture will now need to find a way to retain their form without him.

But it does beg the question: Are penalties harsh enough for repreat offenders?

Under the NRL's current judiciary policy, penalties cap out for a third offence. In theory, a player could go and get a Grade 1 charge every single week of the season and pay 27 fines, never facing a suspension.

Obviously, the practice of that is far less realistic. At some point, a player committing offences every week is going to slip beyond a Grade 1 charge is going to slip into Grade 2 territory and spend time on the sideline, as Koroisau did on Thursday evening.

But if he had only been hit with a Grade 1 charge for the hip drop tackle - as accidental as it was, it was out of the textbook - he would have been slapped with a fine, and been free to play again.

That would have been a player lining up for his side with four charges on his record in eight games of footy.

He isn't the first to have a horror record like that, but it's certainly one of the fastest we have seen to so many charges.

There is no doubt the game being played at a far faster pace this year than even last year is adding to the issues for players when it comes to fatigue and technique.

Rugby league coach Lee Addison told us recently that fatigue is the main cause of technique issues for players, particularly in defence, and in Koroisau's case, that is exactly what the hip drop tackle on Thursday was.

But nonetheless, it's still the job of a defender to show a duty of care for the attacker in a competition where injuries are significantly on the rise.

The bottom line though is that penalties aren't harsh enough for repeat offenders.

Under current policies, most Grade 1 third offences only result in fines being dished out, and while they do total $3000, that is still a drop in the bucket for players who earn well north of half a million dollars per season.

Suspensions should, frankly, be almost mandatory for fourth offences and beyond.

The NRL certainly made a conscious decision to limit suspensions for Grade 1 offences a number of years ago, and in the most part, should be applauded for doing so. We now see far less in the way of suspensions than we used to for menial offences that frankly don't deserve it.

But for players committing four or more offences in the same season, there probably needs to be a tougher sanction put in front of them.

Maybe the number isn't four offences.

Maybe it's five, maybe it's more, but calling everything after a third offence a "subsequent offence" with exactly the same penalty doesn't pass the smell test.