The NRL are considering bringing back the five-minute sin bin for certain offences.
The league's head of football Graham Annesley said it was on the agenda at the end-of-season competition committee meeting.
It could avoid situations like last week, when Manly's ย Jake Trbojevic was sent off for 10 minutes, during which the Sea Eagles gave up a seven-point lead to the Rabbitohs to get bounced of of the finals.
Annesley confirmed having both five-minute and 10-minute categories is something that would be considered.
"I can see a case for it," Annesley told The Sydney Morning Herald.
"Even incidents that go to the sin bin ... some are more serious than others, yet they all get 10 minutes. I can see there's potentially an argument for that.
"We would have to be very careful about what parameters we put around that because we could bring the referees into more controversy by having someone in the bin for five and someone in the bin for 10.
"I'm open to it. I agree not everything is the same."
Rabbitoh Cody Walker, Manly's Brad Parker and Melbourne's Cameron Smith were also sin-binned on the weekend, with the league set discuss potential ideas with officials from all 16 clubs on the issue.
Asked whether a slapping offence would fall under the five-minute category, Annesley said: "It could be. There may be a case to introduce five minutes for some offences.
"You would have to define very closely what those offences are so we don't get into this situation of more criticism of referees for being inconsistent in how they use the sin bin. We would be happy to discuss that for some of the more minor incidents, that might be a better outcome."
Don’t over complicate it. You can never get a perfect penalty and introducing a 5 min sin bin will only provide another point of controversy for the media to latch onto.