Broncos coach Anthony Griffin claims Sam Thaiday ban against spirit of the game BRISBANE coach Anthony Griffin has lashed out the NRL, claiming the league should have better handled Sam Thaiday's clash with the referee at the weekend instead of "crucifying" a club captain for no real reason. Griffin said Thaiday's contrary conduct charge for grabbing the shirt of Adam Devcich in the match against Melbourne last Friday was as much an error as the video referee missing prop Bryan Norrie holding on to the Broncos' skipper. "We think the 'against the spirit of the game' is the other player grabbing our guy trying to get out of a scrum," Griffin said. The other thing against the spirit of the game is the referees getting it wrong -- and that's their words, not mine. NRL referees boss Daniel Anderson said in two separate radio interviews over the weekend he felt there was nothing in the Thaiday incident, but when the NRL match review committee charged Thaiday, Anderson phoned Griffin. Daniel coming out and saying all that is within the spirit of the game. He's the one showing the most strength out of this," a fired up Griffin said. He's admitted they got the call wrong; he's admitted Sam shouldn't have been charged. The NRL said last night it would not be commenting as the matter was before the judiciary. Brisbane football manager Andrew Gee and lawyer Peter Shields will accompany Thaiday to the judiciary in Sydney tonight. Griffin is not attending but he certainly let the NRL know of the injustice the club felt. The NRL have the ability to use discretion on how they deal with that. It doesn't have to be 'let's straight away go to the charge book'," Griffin said. They can act in the spirit of the game, too, and understand that there were a couple of things that went wrong in that incident and deal with it in another manner. I'd like to think there's someone with some ability down there to sort through matters rather than just shooting a charge at someone. Sam Thaiday is a club captain. He's not someone who just came out of the pack wanting to take the referee on. Griffin said he didn't think Brisbane would get Thaiday cleared. I hope he gets off and I hope there's people down there that can see it's too harsh a penalty. I'd say we're up against it but we're not going to stand back and let our captain be crucified," he said. The coach said Thaiday was "dirty" about having to miss a game. "If it was a preliminary final and it was Cameron Smith or Jamie Lyon, I'm just wondering if they'd be making the same decision," said Griffin. It's a big call to rule someone out for a week when they could have sent through a warning letter.