Trent Robinson did not defend Victor Radley's match-turning act in their loss to Melbourne - but the Sydney Roosters coach still stands by his firebrand player.
Radley was sent to the sin-bin and put on report midway through the first half on Thursday for a late shot on Storm playmaker Cameron Munster.
At that stage the Roosters were in front by two points but by the time the lock returned the visitors were down 18-8 and didn't manage to score another point as Melbourne surged to a 28-8 victory.
Robinson conceded it was a turning point for his NRL team, but pointed out that Radley wasn't responsible for their horror completion rate, missed tackles and poor kicking game at AAMI Park.
The 25-year-old's discipline has proved costly over his 100-plus game career at the Roosters but Robinson felt he was making inroads.
"I want him (Radley) to fix it, but not dwell on it," Robinson said.
"He's made some really good progressions this year, so he's not going to go back to zero on the stuff that he's got under control and the way that he's played the game.
"He's playing good minutes, he's got good vision of play.
"He made a mistake there but we won't dwell on it for too long."
While frustrated with the sinbin, Robinson questioned how Radley's late shot, which left Munster unscathed, warranted the same punishment as the brutal hit by Parramatta's Bailey Simonsson the previous week that left Roosters skipper James Tedesco concussed and ruled out of Thursday's match.
"It's on the light side. We had 10 minutes last week for that and 10 for this, it's frustrating that there's a big difference in the 10 minutes," Robinson said.
"We got some things this week from the NRL basically saying you can't do that (late hit).
"If it happened to Kez (Luke Keary), I'd be really frustrated there, it was really unnecessary. It wasn't the end of the world at the same time."
