CRONULLA forward Paul Gallen has escaped suspension for his high shot on Ben Creagh with an early guilty plea yesterday. His wink, after staying down and earning a penalty when he was hit high himself, also went unpunished.

However the NRL has warned it will act "within weeks" to discourage players from taking dives and NSW captain Danny Buderus weighed into the debate yesterday, calling on players to lift their game and protect their own reputations.

"If you can get up you've got to get up ... that's what rugby league is all about," he said. "If he doesn't want to be known as a player who does that then he should get up."

After Cronulla's 20-16 win on Monday night, both Dragons coach Nathan Brown and Sharks counterpart Ricky Stuart complained that "laying down" was becoming a blight on the game. There were three incidents when players appeared to give the video referee ample time to watch a replay.

Adam Peek was marched (and has been suspended for two weeks) after elbowing Cronulla halfback Adam Dykes.

Penalties also came when Creagh was slow to his feet after Gallen's tackle and when Gallen stayed down after Richie Williams collected him high.

According to NRL Stats, 17 penalties - 14 for high tackles and three for striking - have been awarded this year for incidents seen by the video referee.

"We want to make sure this [laying down] doesn't get out of hand but we also need to make sure we don't allow foul play to go unchecked or for teams to be disadvantaged through that foul play being ignored," NRL chief operating officer Graham Annesley said.

Annesley said referees and match reviewers already had the power to pull up players for acting in a manner contrary to the true spirit of the game. The rule is not currently enforced in relation to dives. "How do you determine a player's taken a dive? That's something we have to try and get our heads around in terms of setting a policy," he said.

Video referee Bill Harrigan said: "The difficulty is that a high tackle is always a high tackle. The question of whether the player was hurt does not come into it.

"If a bloke gets a penalty and stays down, rather than talk about the guy who stayed down, the bottom line is he still got whacked in the head and that's against the rules of the game."

Stuart said Creagh and Gallen "might have been able to get to their feet", while Brown accused Dykes of an Oscar-worthy performance.

Predictably, both coaches defended their own. Brown said Creagh was concussed and Stuart pointed to the blood in Dykes's ear.

All coaches deny telling their players to stay down. But do they need to tell them what to do? "Players are smart enough to know if they get a clip across the head they are entitled to see what the result of that might be as far as penalty for their team is concerned," Parramatta coach Michael Hagan said.

Penrith coach Matt Elliott said those making accusations are missing the point.

"Gamesmanship's always been a massive part of the game," he said.