Newcastle coach Rick Stone says Beau Scott’s ugly tackle on Johnathan Thurston was an accident and not part of any illegal roughhouse tactics from the Knights.

North Queensland coach Paul Green accused the Knights of illegally targeting Thurston in their win over the Cowboys on Saturday, in which the representative playmaker was left with a black eye.

But Stone insists that wasn’t the case.

“I know we didn’t set out intentionally to do a job on JT,” he said.

“We know you have to minimise JT every time you play against them and if you give him enough time, he’ll pick you off and he has done that to us plenty of times when we have gone up there before.

“I’m comfortable with how we handled the game.”

However, Stone did concede that Scott’s much criticised tackle on Thurston went wrong.

“Obviously Beau is not totally happy with that little tackle that went a bit untidy,” Stone said.

“Most of those sort of dangerous throw tackles are purely accidental and I understand how the judiciary has to judge on them.

“But there is not a person in the game after watching the Alex McKinnon thing last year that would be intentionally trying to tip a player on his head.

“Because that affected everyone involved in rugby league.”

However, the criticism of the Knights has continued to flow, with former Cowboys board member Ben Ikin saying Thurston had been illegally targeted.

“Unfortunately for Paul Green and the Cowboys it would seem that of all the supposed late and foul contact levelled at Thurston on Saturday night, only one tackle from Beau Scott was deemed to be illegal,” Ikin told Fox Sports.