There was a huge reprieve for Fitzgibbon when Dale Finucane escaped without suspension despite being charged for a crusher tackle on Luciano Leilua during the 32-30 loss.

Finucane will pay a $3000 fine with an early guilty plea for the grade one charge. The incident wasn’t penalised during the match.

It wasn’t the only major flashpoint of the game with Cowboys matchwinner Valentine Holmes insisting he didn’t take a dive for a contentious Connor Tracey no-try,which was ruled out after Jesse Ramien was adjudged to have obstructed the State of Origin star.

“I’m trying to cover and he ran into my outside shoulder and I fell over,” Holmes said. “I really don’t like guys milking penalties,and I’m never the guy to milk penalties. I have a thing about that. He should have just stopped or gone through the line on my inside shoulder.

“I wasn’t that confident at all[about getting the decision]. I thought it was going to be a try because I probably wasn’t going to get there.

“There were a lot of calls out there and I thought the refs did a really good job. I thought it was reffed really well.”

The NRL is also likely to remind clubs about the penalties associated with throwing an opponent’s boot away after Raiders forward Corey Horsburgh escaped sanction for the cheeky practice in Canberra’s upset win over Melbourne.

Horsburgh launched Cameron Munster’s boot 30 metres away after it came off during a tackle,forcing the Melbourne talisman to fetch it,missing several plays. The Raiders weren’t penalised by referee Grant Atkins.

The NRL cracked down on players doing it when NSW coach Brad Fittler threatened to order his players to do it in 2019 after Boyd Cordner was forced to play five minutes of a State of Origin match without one shoe. It had been thrown over the sideline by Queensland rival Ben Hunt.

Players were subsequently told they could be penalised for the act,and Panthers star Stephen Crichton was fined for doing the same to Justin Olam in last year’s preliminary final.

“We’ll be talking to the clubs that are playing next week,” NRL head of football Graham Annesley said. “We haven’t seen it for quite a long time and we did see a spate of them quite a few years ago. We advised clubs back then they can be penalised for it.”

with Adrian Proszenko

Stream the NRL Premiership 2022 live and free on9Now.