In-form Melbourne full-back Billy Slater is facing a two-game suspension after the National Rugby League match review committee yesterday branded him the instigator of a wild brawl that marred the Storm's 26-0 win over St George Illawarra on Monday night at Olympic Park.

Storm officials spent yesterday afternoon searching for video footage that might help them argue against a grade-two contrary-conduct charge that was laid against Slater in the aftermath of the spiteful game against the Dragons. The clash blew up after Storm's Cooper Cronk and the Dragons' Jamie Soward got into a push and shove and all players rushed in to lend support.

The all-in brawl was highlighted by Slater's barrage of uppercuts on Dragons winger Jason Nightingale, who had been facing off with Storm back-rower Michael Crocker, a good friend of Slater. Once that stoush subsided another flared moments later between Beau Scott and Dallas Johnson.

Match review commissioner Greg McCallum yesterday made it clear who the committee blamed for sparking the melee.

"The incident wasn't going anywhere and Billy Slater came running from a fair distance and started throwing punches … and the match review committee were of the opinion that he was responsible for the incident escalating," McCallum said.

Scott was the only other player cited yesterday, being handed a grade-one contrary-conduct charge, which means he faces a one-game suspension. Johnson and Nightingale both escaped punishment because they were deemed to have acted in self defence.

The match review committee also determined that Adam Blair and Soward, who were sin-binned for their parts in the melee, and Jason Ryles, who was sent off for kicking out at Jeff Lima in a scrum, had no cases to answer.

McCallum said Slater was handed the harsher penalty — he would miss two games even with an early guilty plead — because he was more involved than any other player.

"If you view the video, I think you will be left in no doubt who threw the larger number of punches and who ran a significant distance to get involved, so that's the difference," McCallum said.

Storm football operations manager Frank Ponissi said a decision would be made this morning on whether the charge against Slater, who has kept a clean slate since his troubled 2006 when he was suspended three times, would be appealed at the judiciary.

Ryles escaped further punishment, with McCallum saying that referee Gavin Badger's decision to send off the Dragons prop for kicking out at Lima in a scrum was too harsh. McCallum said Storm front-rower Lima had been the instigator but both players' actions did not warrant further action.

Referees' coach Robert Finch confirmed Badger had been demoted from first grade because of the decision, which he believed should have resulted in a penalty or, at worst, a sin-binning. "The send-off was the wrong call … I believe there had to be action taken but I think the action he took was far too severe for the actual incident."

Lima, for his part, played the fool yesterday and continually denied he was the player involved, arguing: "It was Sika (Manu). Sika was in the scrum. I don't know what you're on about, mate."

The Storm has made one change to its side for its round-20 clash against New Zealand Warriors on Sunday, with Anthony Quinn returning to the left wing after missing against the Dragons because of concussion. Steve Turner is likely to move to full-back if Slater is suspended and Michael Crocker will be assessed during the week after his second bout of concussion in a month. The Warriors, who have won their past three games, named an unchanged team.

Meanwhile, Cronulla and Australian coach Ricky Stuart yesterday reignited grapple-mania by claiming Melbourne had gone back to its old ways of wrestling players around the head.

"It's just not good for the game, it's not good for kids to see …but we've all of a sudden gone lenient on it again with Melbourne," Stuart said.

"I'll put my chin out there again (by speaking out) to get it whacked, but someone has to do it because it shouldn't be in the game."

McCallum said the match review committee looked at incidents of grapple tackling from both sides but concluded that none of them warranted any penalty.