Wayne Bennett has demanded the NRL crackdown on teams giving away penalties in their red zone after sensationally accusing North Queensland of the tactic.
Bennett should have been all smiles after Brisbane sealed a dramatic 21-20 golden point win over nemesis North Queensland in the NRL grand final re-match at a packed Suncorp Stadium on Friday night.
However, the master coach took exception to the Cowboys after Brisbane were gifted four penalties virtually in front of the uprights by the visitors.
Bennett accused the Cowboys of giving away two points rather than risk six by committing professional fouls when the Broncos were attacking 20m from the try-line.
Bennett even claimed the NRL were "three years behind" in development due to what he believed was a blight on the game.
"(NRL boss) Todd (Greenberg) has said the game is in front of tactics, well we are about three years behind (after) the amount of penalties we got," Bennett said.
"They (professional fouls) haven't gone out of the game and there are certain teams that do it.
"Their mindset is 'it's better to give you two than give you six'.
"Not all clubs are into it, but we have to have a better ruling than getting kicks when giving penalties away.
"We want to play football in there, we don't want to be taking the two points to be honest.
"The game has to start having a look at it."
Cowboys coach Paul Green was not happy when accused of the tactic post-match.
"We don't intentionally give away penalties if that is what you are trying to infer," he told reporters.
"That's certainly not the way we coach.
"We will back our 'd' (defence) in that case.
"As long as referees are consistent with that stuff, that's all we want as coaches."
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