worldwideloaded

The NRL's match review committee may need to charge a second player for touching a referee this round after Brisbane centre James Roberts made contact with a whistleblower on Friday night.

In an incident that went largely unnoticed, Roberts lightly touched referee Matt Noyen on the chest after he blew a penalty following a scrum. There was no malice in the gesture, which occurred in the 78th minute of Brisbane's win over the Warriors at Suncorp Stadium.
However, the NRL has shown it won't tolerate players touching on-field officials, even if the contact is minimal. The governing body has charged David Klemmer, who has a chequered history with the whistleblowers, with contrary conduct for the offence. The Canterbury forward is facing two weeks on the sidelines after placing his hands on Ben Cummins in his side's win over Penrith on Thursday night.

"It would be very sad if James sat out for a week over that," said Roberts' manager, Jeremy Donovan.
"It doesn't look like James is looking at the person he taps on the chest. All of his teammates are around when he puts his hand out. I'd be disappointed if that was the case because there was no interaction between James and the referee, he wasn't engaged with or looking at him.
"He gets out of the scrum and he didn't approach the ref, he wasn't looking. It's a pretty different scenario to the David Klemmer situation and I think you could argue that fairly easily.
"You've got to remember the referee is wearing a yellow jersey and there are flecks of yellow on the Broncos' one. It could have been an easy mistake to make."
The Roberts incident, coupled with a shoulder injury to Corey Oates that will likely sideline him for between four and six weeks, are the only negatives in an otherwise strong start to the season for Brisbane. The Broncos have won both their opening matches, while Warriors coach Andrew McFadden is under increasing pressure after a winless start.
The star-studded Warriors host Melbourne next Sunday