"They got it wrong": Townsend and Kemp slam Dearden non-call

Chad Townsend and Denan Kemp believe North Queensland's Tom Dearden should have received a penalty after being the victim of a hip drop tackle that went unpenalized.

During Friday night’s golden point loss to the Eels, the Queensland representative was brought down in a tackle by Josh Addo-Carr and Joash Papalii, seeing him in agony.

Despite being hindered from the tackle, Dearden continued to play through the last 15 minutes of the second half before coming off at the start of golden point.

Following the injury, it was confirmed that the halfback would miss the majority of the State of Origin series with an ankle injury, leaving the Maroons No. 7 jersey wide open.

Following the match, Townsend was surprised that the incident didn’t draw the referee’s whistle.

“If Tom Dearden stays down and he gets helped off the field clearly injured, as he was, there's gonna be a penalty,” the 2016 Premiership player told SEN’s Saturday League Kick-Off.

“Like, without a doubt, a penalty there.

“And how many times do players stay down for penalties, right? They stay down.

“In this instance, Tom's almost got his team penalised for not getting the penalty because he got up and fought on.

“I thought they got it wrong. I thought it was a penalty.

“Tom was clearly injured, and this is the thing that ticks me off.

“They judge the punishment (of a penalty) on the significance of the injury.”

This was a sentiment shared by Kemp, with the former Broncos winger believing a penalty should have been awarded.

“I understand the human nature of that,” Kemp added.

“I get it, like oh well that's a bad look, he’s in agony on the ground, and we're not gonna penalise it.

“And there are extreme circumstances where I do think that sometimes, like for example, the Bailey Simonsson one, where he twisted his ankle there.

“That's an extreme example where it's not gonna happen often. It's very rare, so I'm OK with that.

“With this one, basically you're punishing Tom Dearden for playing rugby league the way everyone wants him to play, which is (to) be tough, get straight up, and don't milk penalties.

“What's bizarre to me though, is you could see it was a hip drop, even if he didn't go off the field or even if he was 100% fine.

‘What I don't get is why does it have to be a player injured for it to be a hip drop?

“How come it can't just be (that) he landed on the back of his legs?

"Even if he gets up and plays the ball correctly and it's all good, it should still be a penalty.

“If you're a coach now going forward, you would definitely be telling Dearden, ‘mate, don't get up’.

“At the very least, stay down on the ground for four or five minutes, so that we stop the game, and we look at replays.

“But if you just get straight up and keep playing, you are basically penalising your team.”

The Cowboys will be without Dearden for the next six to eight weeks.

Their next match is against the Sydney Roosters as part of the NRL’s Magic Round on Saturday at Suncorp Stadium.