Sydney Roosters fullback James Tedesco has called for alterations to the 18th-man rule to make replacements easier, after the tricolours were stuck with a one-man interchange for the entire second half of their elimination final on Sunday.
Tedesco, who has suffered concussions in the past, was ruled out for the remainder of their clash with South Sydney after a stray shot from Thomas Burgess sent the fullback's head spinning in the 16th minute.
Because Burgess wasn't sin-binned or sent off for the incident, the Chooks weren't able to activate their 18th-man, Adam Keighran.
It was a different situation for the Rabbitohs, who activated their injury replacement, Michael Chee Kam after Burgess failed his HIA following a head slam from Jared Warea-Hargreaves.
The Roosters lost Daniel Tupou to a groin injury and Angus Crichton to concussion, however under the guidelines, a team must have three or more players ruled out through concussion to activate the 18th-man.
While Burgess was binned a minute later after catching Matt Lodge high, and has been subsequently suspended for the Tedesco hit, the rule's quirk has the Roosters' captain pondering alternate ways to introduce the injury replacement player.
"If it's a reportable offence and the player misses the rest of the game, then that could be an option for him to be activated," Tedesco told the AAP.
"It would have been handy.
"We had two HIAs and another injury. It would have been nice to get him activated."
The custodian cleaned up at the NSW Blue awards on Monday night after not drinking onMad Monday, winning the Brad Fittler Medal as well as both the coach's and fan's player of the series.
While the early exit will allow 'Teddy' to spend time finding spare room in his jam-packed trophy cabinet, the Kangaroo was frustrated at the result of Sunday's game, and felt helpless as seven players were binned throughout the 80 minute contest.
"I was devastated I couldn't get back in the game," Tedesco said.
"It was one of the craziest games I've been involved in... it felt like it went for three hours.
"It was not how we wanted to play. We got too emotionally involved and it was to our detriment in the end.
"We bought into the emotional stuff, which was what we didn't want to do."
Tedesco will be forced to watch the final three weeks of the finals from his lounge room for the first time in his Sydney Roosters career before jetting off to England in a month to take his place in Mal Meninga's Kangaroos squad.
While Daly Cherry-Evans is the favourite, Tedesco is a strong chance of captaining the green-and-gold if Nathan Cleary gets the nod at halfback.
