Defiant NRL referees boss Robert Finch has ordered his referees to keep sending players to the sin bin because he believes law and order needs to be restored on the field.

Defiant NRL referees boss Robert Finch has ordered his referees to keep sending players to the sin bin because he believes law and order needs to be restored on the field.

After a weekend of further whistle-blowing controversy, the NRL referees boss yesterday told The Daily Telegraph he would instruct the men in the middle to continue using the sin bin to deter rule breakers.

"Referees will not continue to penalise players. They will talk to the captains to sort their teams out and if they don't . . . the sin bin will be used," Finch said.

"If we continue to get 17 or so penalties and captains don't respond, then there will be more sin-binnings."

Although the penalty count has not risen this year compared to last, the use of the sin bin has doubled, with South Sydney Rabbitohs try-scoring machine Beau Champion becoming the season's eighth victim when he was marched during Sunday's loss to the Eels.

As players, fans and commentators expressed their utter despair at the standard of refereeing this season, a frustrated Champion slammed the spate of sin-binnings as "ridiculous".

Champion was ejected from the game in the 64th minute for a dubious high shot, minutes after Parramatta Eels captain Nathan Cayless was wrongly sin-binned for stripping in a tackle.

"Honestly, I think it was ridiculous," Champion said.

"The sin bin is usually for a professional foul and I didn't think what I did was. For someone to be sin-binned because the team is giving away penalties is very harsh. It was my first offence in the game."

But Finch stood by his referees as they took heavy fire yesterday, adamant their decisions were justified after Nathan Hindmarsh and Luke Stuart were warned about repeated infringements.

However, he admitted referees Ben Cummings and Gerard Sutton got it wrong by ordering Cayless off for a strip when, in fact, halfback Daniel Mortimer was the culprit.

"Both captains were spoken to on a number of occasions," Finch said.

"We had 21 penalties in that game, which is a massive amount.

"(The referees) spoke to Hindmarsh in the 21st minute, Stuart in the first half and then also in the 57th minute, and they spoke to both of them in the 61st minute after there had been 17 penalties. He told them that it wasn't on and from there it is up to them.

"Two minutes after he spoke to them there was a strip, so he used the sin bin for repeated infringements. I admit Daniel Mortimer should have been the one in the sin bin, not Cayless. Then in the 64th we have high contact by Champion, which was also a repeated infringement."

But Champion argued warnings to the team captain do not always reach players during a high-pressure, fast-paced game. "How is the captain supposed to walk over and tell everyone on the field?" Champion said. 'The game is going so fast already and you can't stop it to tell all the players on the field.

"I hadn't heard anything. But even if you are told, you could give away a penalty because of fatigue or an accidental offside. Does that mean you are in the bin? No one means to give a penalty away."

After wrongly losing his captain on Sunday, Eels CEO Paul Osborne urged referees to use greater discretion when using the sin bin.

"The quality of refereeing has dropped remarkably," Osborne said.

"I think sin-binning blokes at the end of the game is ridiculous because they run the risk of getting it wrong, as they did Sunday."