Canberra will avoid stirring up Cronulla players in their do-or-die semi-final to prevent a repeat of Hudson Young's unusual sin-binning for celebrating in the face of Brisbane fullback Reece Walsh.
Young and Walsh were given their marching orders by referee Ashley Klein after the pair came together in the Raiders' devastating 29-28 loss to the Broncos on Sunday.
Walsh appeared to headbutt Young after the Raiders back rower got in his face to celebrate a Brisbane error.
Raiders officials were left scratching their heads over how Young was given the same punishment for stirring a player up as Walsh was for a headbutt.
Speaking to reporters on Thursday, fiery Canberra forward Corey Horsburgh was still unclear about whether the NRL was enforcing an unwritten "stirring up" rule.
"I don't know. I wasn't on the field at the time, but I'd be sent off every week if that was a rule," he said.
"Hopefully that's not a rule now.
"(Young) is a competitor. I don't think he did anything wrong in my opinion. But yeah, that's footy."
With the Raiders set to come up against one of the competition's premier pests in the form of Sharks winger Ronaldo Mulitalo on Saturday, Horsburgh said it would be nice if other clubs also faced the same punishment for riling up opponents.
"But yeah, like I said, I think that's a grey area. I think it was a one off, I reckon. I don't think that would happen again," he said.
Canberra captain Joe Tapine said his teammates would just have to avoid celebrating in opponents' faces.
"Don't get into those kinds of situations, so we don't have that flip the coin kind of thing. So just be a bit more clean," he said.
The front rower was readying himself for a stern challenge from a powerful Sharks forward pack, including strike prop Addin Fonua-Blake.
"I think the Sharks, they've played themselves into form," Tapine said.
"I think their main strength was ... their back five. You've got to try to slow them down and get their big middles behind the ball. I think that's our big goal this week.
"But obviously they've got Addin and their forward pack's a big lot of boys, so it's a nice challenge for us."
