‘Long hair? Fair game’: Why it’s time to stop punishing NRL players for pulling hair

And here we all were thinking the NRL had run out of things to over-complicate.

Well, now you can throw the good old-fashioned hair-pull into the conversation.

How else do you explain a couple of ugly incidents from last weekend’s NRL action that ended with completely different outcomes?

Last Saturday night, down at AAMI Park, Roosters back-rower Siua Wong yanked on Melbourne playmaker Cameron Munster’s locks. The next day, he was charged with contrary conduct, and slapped with a $1800 fine.

Then on Sunday, at CommBank Stadium, Penrith’s Luke Garner grabbed hold of Warriors cult hero Dallin Watene-Zelezniak and did his best to spin him around by his long, frilly tresses.

There was no penalty, and no sign of Garner’s name on the match review committee’s charge sheet the next day.

We picked up the phone to the NRL this week to find out what was going on.

In a nutshell, Wong was punished because of a “sustained grip” on Munster’s hair, which helped him bring the player to the ground.

In Garner’s case, he was ruled to have only “briefly” yanked at Watene-Zelezniak’s hair before he was pushed to the ground.

Both incidents were ugly. Poor old Freddy Lussick was confused for fellow blond Garner and placed on report.

Wong became the ninth player charged for hair-pulling since the start of 2024, with a total of almost $14,000 stumped up in fines over that period.

The NRL hates hair-pulling because it is not in the spirit of the game and often leads to fisticuffs – or at least a bit of push and shove.

But it is bound to happen more regularly, especially with society’s (sad) embrace of the mullet, and players of Pasifika heritage who love their long locks.

David Middleton keeps every rugby league statistic under the sun, but was stumped when we asked him what percentage of players still sported the “short back and sides”.

“I’m good, but I’m not that good,” said Middleton – who revealed he once had long hair, way back in 1982.

That is already the case in the NFL, under the “Ricky rule”. Ricky Williams was a running back with the Miami Dolphins when he had his long hair pulled twice in the one game in 2003, with the culprits not sanctioned.

The NFL at the time deemed hair pulling “fair game”, with officiating director Mike Pereira telling US press not long after the Williams incident: “If you’re going to wear your locks out like that, you’re the one that’s at risk.”

We asked Dick Fain, the Seattle-based sports guru who has a regular segment on Sky Sports Radio, if hair-pulling was still allowed.

Fain said there was a “horse-collar rule” in place, wh