'It's incompetence': Journo savages NRL over Sam Burgess 'disgrace'

NRL journalist Paul Kent has taken aim at the judiciary for allowing Souths forward Sam Burgess to play this weekend despite his high tackle on Matt Moylan.

Burgess got off with a fine for his hit that concussed Matt Moylan last weekend despite the Sharks fullback being ruled out this Friday.

The South Sydney captain managed to escape an eighth suspension of his decorated but turbulent NRL career on a drama-charged night at the judiciary on Tuesday.

While Penrith playmaker James Maloney was rubbed out of Friday night's crucial clash with Cronulla after being unable to talk his way out of a low-grade tripping charge, Burgess sat stony-faced and silent as his sharp-minded legal eagle pulled off an unexpected judiciary coup.

But Kent, on NRL 360, slammed the NRL for allowing Burgess to escape a suspension.

“I think it is incompetence. Almost every time Nick Ghabar goes there he plays them off a break,” Kent said.

Kent then went on to question some of the defence of Nick Ghabar that ultimately helped Burgess get off the suspension.

“Ghabar says there is no evidence of any injury to Moylan as part of the submission to defending the tackle,” Kent added.

“This is because the NRL had this cocked up system whereby they had a power outage, therefore they couldn’t review the system.

“Therefore Moylan wasn’t pulled off immediately for a HIA. It took 13 minutes for him to be pulled off by which time he had recovered enough to go back on the field.

“But the point is Moylan was ruled out for two weeks on Tuesday. Now the prosecution Peter McGrath should have known that Moylan had been ruled out. Then when Nick Gabar says there was no evidence of any injury he should have said, excuse me yes there was.”

NRL world fumes

The NRL world exploded with disbelief that Burgess avoided suspension, with former player Mark Riddell labelling it a “bloody disgrace”.

"I'm not having a shot at Sammy, his legal team argued the point at got it across and convinced the panel that he could get off and pay a fine," Riddell said on Macquarie Sports Radio.

"But if that is a grade one careless charge, I'll give it away.

"Matt Moylan is not playing this week because of concussion from this exact event and Sam Burgess is going to play, I just find it ridiculous.

"I just look at that and think no way in the world that's a grade one careless tackle, it's grade two minimum for me.

"I have no idea how he got off."