North Queensland Cowboys representative winger Murray Taulagi has escaped with a fine after being hit with a Grade 1 dangerous contact charge.
The shot saw Taulagi spend ten minutes in the sin bin, and the Grade 1 charge will only continue to ask questions surrounding the consistency of the NRL's match review committee, with other late shots this season that were seemingly far better than the one Taulagi made on Saturday evening suffering higher charges and suspensions.
With a three-year incident free discount, Taulagi can accept just a $750 fine if he takes the early guilty plea, or pay $1000 if he heads to the judiciary and loses the challenge.
One would expect the winger to simply accept the early guilty plea after coach Todd Payten labelled the play from Taulagi against Newcastle Knights' back Dane Gagai as a "not smart decision" during his post match press conference.
The tackle saw Taulagi attempting to shut down a sweeping play to the right-hand side for the Newcastle Knights, however, after being virtually flat-footed as Gagai passed the ball, he would make a move towards Gagai and hit him in a late tackle.
The shot, while not overly dangerous, came after Gagai had relaxed from passing the football, and was rightly sin binned by referee Ben Cummins on advice of Grant Atkins in the NRL bunker.
The Knights would score twice in the following ten minutes to take the lead, with Dominic Young crossing in the next set and Lachlan Fitzgibbon scoring at the end of the ten-minute period.
The Cowboys would ultimately post a late try through Tom Dearden to sweep back to the lead and claim just their third victory of the season.
No other charges were handed down by the NRL on Sunday morning out of either the Cowboys win over the Knights, or from the Sharks 33 points to 20 win over the Canterbury Bulldogs.
