Canberra Raiders would've lost points if they won: NRL

NRL head of football Graham Annesley alluded to the fact that's what could have happened if the Green Machine had've beaten the Dragons after illegally activating their 18^th man in Wollongong on Saturday.

The Dragons ran over the top of the Raiders in the second half to win 22-20 in blustery conditions.

Annesley said they would review the 18^th man rule, which was only introduced after round four this year, and any possible changes at the end of the season.

He also said they would look to introduce further measures before the next NRL round to help ensure the error doesn't happen again.

The NRL were yet to decide on any potential sanctions for the Raiders, with the Canberra club facing the prospect of a fine.

Their integrity unit was also yet to decide whether Raiders centre Curtis Scott would face any sanctions for his alleged involvement in a bar fight at Civic nightclub Kokomo's last month.

Scott's been stood down since The Canberra Times revealed CCTV footage of the incident and has been given a program to follow while training on his own away from Raiders HQ.

Annesley acknowledged the Raiders for accepting responsibility for the 18^th man fiasco, which saw Xavier Savage come on for his NRL debut after Sebastian Kris was ruled out of the game.

Kris had been caught high by Dragons second-rower Jack Bird, who was put on report for the incident.

Raiders coach Ricky Stuart thought that meant he could bring Savage on because he'd lost Kris due to foul play.

But the NRL rules state the 18^th man can only be activated due to foul play if the offending player was sent off or sent to the sin bin.

That wasn't the case and Savage was removed from the ground when the error had been identified - 12 minutes after he'd run on.

"What will result from that is still being determined. We've got reports, we're working our way through those at the moment, we've been looking at the video of the incident ... what action might flow and that's ultimately a decision made by the CEO [Andrew Abdo]," Annesley said on Monday.

"Fortunately we're not confronted with having to make that decision [to strip points]. But it would've been a much more complex process and consideration had the Raiders won the game.

"If the situation was different we would've had to look at all our options available."

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Annesley had sympathy for Stuart and the Raiders, acknowledging there was "mass confusion" on the sideline at the time.

The Raiders only decided to bring Savage on just before the second half began, after Kris had passed his head injury assessment only to realise he was having problems with his vision when he ran back onto the ground.

Savage was then quickly brought onto the field.

After the game, Stuart felt the rule should be tweaked to include when a player was put on report - having already accepted responsibility for the mistake.

Annesley said there were no plans to change the rule this season, but they would review it after the campaign.

"We'll look very carefully at how we can put measures in place to assist clubs - it is still and always will be their responsibility - but what we try and do is assist them to ensure they comply with the rules," he said.

"If we can do anything by tweaking our processes to make sure it is less likely for this to occur in the future then we'll certainly do that."