St George Illawarra captain Ben Hunt has labelled NRL sanctions for some hip-drops as "unfair", claiming he's confused on where chasing players can now tackle.
Several players have been sin-binned, fined and suspended for hip-drops in the past month, after their body weight dropped on the exposed legs of attackers.
The issue was highlighted last week when Canterbury rookie Jacob Preston was sin-binned for an alleged hip-drop, before being cleared by the review committee.
Hunt's Dragons teammate Jaydn Su'A was also fined $1800 for a hip-drop on Gold Coast's Tanah Boyd, trying to stop the halfback after he pushed through a gap.
But while Hunt said some were obvious examples that needed to be removed, he questioned if players should be fined or banned if they make a one-on-one tackle from behind and fall on a player's legs.
"I definitely think it is unfair," Hunt told AAP.
"You look at some of them and they are genuinely bad. When there are a couple of people in the tackle and they pull them back over them and things like that.
"The one with Jaydn, there is definitely no intent in it. You are trying to pull a guy down from behind."
The Queensland and Australian Test representative said he could understand why the NRL had targeted the tackle, given the risk of injury.
But he did not understand where that left defending players.
"I don't know where the game is going to go with it, I really don't. It is confusing for me," Hunt said.
"When you are trying to tackle a player from behind, how are you meant to do it?
"You grab them from above the shoulders and pull on their jersey, you get penalised. If you dive into the back of their legs you get penalised.
"We're running out of areas to tackle. I understand they're trying to make it safer, but where do you draw the line?"
Su'A said he understood why he was fined, but questioned how he should tackle players from behind in the future.
"I don't know? Let him through? Let him score the winning try?" Su'A said.
"In terms of a player having momentum and going through the line and you trying to tackle them and getting down, that can be deemed as accidental.
"But if the momentum has stopped and you're third man in and hip-drop, then a suspension is warranted."
It comes after NRL head of football Graham Annesley pointed to examples of players putting their knee on the ground first as way to avoid making hip-drop tackles.
Sydney Roosters coach Trent Robinson said on Thursday that it was possible to teach technique to bring attackers down while avoiding landing on the ball-player's legs.
"People underestimate how technical the guys get in their tackling, and what positions the legs and feet and hands and head and all of that are in," Robinson said.
"You can teach them not to do that and different methods to get (the attacker) down."
