Graham Annesley has told NRL coaches it is firmly on them to stop the milking of penalties, while adamant players are the only people responsible for the recent surge in high-tackle penalties.

The issue of players staying down reared its head again in round 26, with Cronulla coach Craig Fitzgibbon accusing Warriors players of gamesmanship.

It comes amid a rapid increase of high tackles in recent weeks, while charges for high shots have gone from four per week to nine in the past fortnight.

Fitzgibbon was among those to claim a crackdown was in force over the weekend, while Penrith’s Ivan Cleary also lamented a rise in general penalties.

NRL data shows the past four rounds where 27, 27, 30 and 19 high-tackle penalties have been blown are the four highest of any this season.

But a frustrated Annesley hit back at claims of a crackdown on Monday, adamant that the issue rested solely with players.

“Referees can’t invent head contact,” the NRL’s head of football said.

“It either takes place or it doesn’t, and they just have to respond to it.

“I don’t know why we have seen that spike in high tackles, but we have seen a spike, there is no doubt about that. That’s not because of any sort of crackdown.

“My guess would be that we are near the end of the season, games are critical, teams are competing ferociously for 80 minutes.

“The referees would prefer not to be adjudicating on these, because that would mean it’s not happening.

“If target zones were lower and we weren’t seeing tackles go wrong and contact made with the head or neck, then everyone is happy.”

Annesley also claimed penalty numbers over the past six rounds were consistent when compared with the same point last year, at 12.2 per game.

He also insisted it was not the job of referees to determine if attackers were actually injured in tackles.

Warriors winger Dallin Watene-Zelezniak copped the most heat in round 26, after stopping himself from playing the ball after a tackle against Cronulla.

Afterwards, Fitzgibbon suggested the penalty-heavy, stop-start football had encouraged players to stay down, while commentator Cooper Cronk called for fines and suspensions for those who do attempt to milk penalties.

But Annesley said it was not for his referees to decide whether players were acting or actually injured.

“You’d have to direct that to the coaches and ask them (if players are staying down),” he said.

“The one thing I would say is the referee doesn’t know if a player is injured or not.

“You can just imagine the furore if a referee was saying to a player ‘get up, you’re not hurt’ and it turns out he has some kind of serious injury.

“These are matters in the hands of the coaches, if players stay down to try and get penalties. The referees can only react on what they see.”

-AAP