Daly Cherry-Evans says he will back any push for clean skins to receive greater dispensation at the NRL judiciary after narrowly avoiding the first ban of his career.
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Cherry-Evans successfully downgraded his grade-two dangerous throw charge at the judiciary on Tuesday night, turning a three-match ban into a $750 fine.
It means the Manly halfback will be free to face Canberra on Friday night, while he also remains in contention for a maiden Dally M Medal.
But Sea Eagles players were left miffed this week as to why Cherry-Evans' record was not taken into account when it came to any potential ban.
Cherry-Evans had been charged only once previously in 2018 during his 357 matches for Manly, Queensland and Australia, and never banned.
Under NRL rules players will receive a discount on fines for grade-one offences if they have not committed an offence in the previous three years.
But that dispensation does not carry across into calculating suspensions for grade-two or grade-three offences, such as Cherry-Evans' initial charge.
It meant in the eyes of the judicial code Cherry-Evans' history was equal to that of Taane Milne, who last week copped his fifth charge in 20 months.
Judiciary chairman Geoff Bellew reminded panel members on Tuesday they were judging solely on Cherry-Evans' dangerous throw charge, and his clean record should have no impact on the result.
But the Manly captain said he would support any change to the system to take into account a clean record over a long period of time.
"I'm sure when the time is right the NRL will look at it, but I would definitely be an advocate for it," Cherry-Evans said after his hearing.
"It didn't really concern me about having a blemish on the record (now), it was more around fighting for what we thought was a fair grading.
"We genuinely felt like there was a fair case to come here and get it downgraded, and that proved to be the case."
Cherry-Evans' comments come after teammates Tom Trbojevic, Jake Trbojevic and Luke Brooks all made similar arguments on Monday.
The NRL has previously placed more emphasis on a player's history when considering suspensions, but that was deemed as too confusing by critics.
Manly second-rower Haumole Olakau'atu will still miss two matches for his role in the same two-man tackle on Lane, during Manly's win last Friday night.
In the 83-minute hearing, Cherry-Evans and his legal team successfully argued it was Olakau'atu who lifted Lane up and put the Eels forward in a dangerous position.
Cherry-Evans did concede he contributed to the situation, but only by trying to knock Lane off balance with the same tackle technique used throughout his career.
The No.7's lawyer, Nick Ghabar, then claimed Cherry-Evans would have needed "superhuman strength" to stop the tackle from going pear-shaped.
"I genuinely don't believe I could have helped mitigate the risk of what was happening in that tackle," Cherry-Evans told the panel.
Australian Associated Press
