Valentine Holmes is confident a crackdown on head-high tackles will be a positive move for the NRL but the North Queensland fullback insists the move must come with a common sense approach.
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Holmes has been an early-season victim of a high tackle after he was sent flying when collared by Canterbury's Jack Hetherington.
Hetherington was sent off and is serving a five-week ban for an indiscretion that happened well before the NRL's tough stance during Magic Round.
A record 24 charges were handed out in Brisbane at the weekend, amid a flurry of reports, send-offs and sin-bins.
While Holmes says it's a step in the right direction, he wants clarification on some aspects of the crackdown from the NRL and its referees.
"It's good what they're doing, trying to stamp head knocks and targeting heads and stamp that out of the game," he said.
"But I feel like there probably needs to be common sense on what is a send off, what is 10 (minutes) in the bin, what is a penalty and what's on report.
"I feel like over the weekend it was like 15 guys sent for 10 minutes - which is unheard of over a weekend of footy.
"I feel like it's got to be a good cause in the end, hopefully it kind of settles down a bit over the next few weeks because it's getting pretty hard."
Holmes, much like his coach Todd Payten, attributed the rise in high tackles to the current speed of the game and ensuing fatigue.
"It's just getting faster, everyone's fatigued and movements are probably not as good as you would be when you're fresh," he said.
"So then you you're sticking an arm out, you're sticking a shoulder out or guys are slipping over when they're running with the ball and falling over into contact and then you happen to get hit high.
"It all kind of falls into how the ref sees it, but I guess you just got to do your best to not have contact first with the head.
Teammate Tom Gilbert noted the changes as a chance for the Cowboys to adapt and embrace the challenge.
"As a team we've got to expect that someone's going to get sin-binned or sent off and we've got to deal with it, we're going to have to show a lot of resilience," Gilbert said.
"You look at the Raiders who came back when they had 11 players on the field and ended up winning, so we can adapt to it as well.
"We've just got to adjust and at the end of the day, the rules are rules and there's not much we can do about it."
Australian Associated Press
