Sydney Roosters coach Trent Robinson has hit out at the decision not to send off Darcy Lussick after the Parramatta prop’s sickening high shot on Jared Waerea-Hargreaves.

Lussick was placed on report after racing out of the line and catching his former Manly teammate across the head in the first half of the NRL premiers’ 56-4 mauling of the Eels on Saturday night.

Waerea-Hargreaves, who was dismissed from the field for a similar incident on George Rose against Manly last year, stayed on his feet following the clash, and was lucky avoid another knock to the head by a swinging arm from the same player in the next set.

“It’s pretty clear that was a send off, I am not sure what more you want to see and you expect a response,” he said.

“Obviously there was a reason not that they didn’t want to send him off.

“Then there was the second head high straight after which they didn’t want to penalise as they knew they would have to send him off.

“It was a straight arm and it came from a long way. I’ll be interested in their response.

“It’s disappointing given everything we’ve gone through in the off-season. That needed to be dealt with.

“It was last season for us and it should have been with them.”

Lussick will almost certainly receive a lengthy ban for the challenge and could even be referred straight to the NRL judiciary on Wednesday night by the match review committee.

Waerea-Hargreaves, who was sidelined for five weeks for his high shot on Rose, said he had no problems with Lussick and revealed the front-rower apologised to him after the game.

“Me and `Darce’ played in the 20s together at Manly,” he said.

“Obviously it was high and the ref thought as well so I will leave up to the match review committee now,” the New Zealand international said.

“I didn’t think the second was high, I thought it was OK, but I don’t think it was a send off cause.

“Me and `Darce’ are mates and we chat off the field, we had a yarn after the game and he apologised. I said it’s all good – it’s footy. I copped one and we move on.”

The incident overshadowed a brilliant performance from the Roosters who ran in 10 tries, with skipper Anthony Minichiello bagging the first hat-trick in his 15-year career.

Robinson’s side scored 40 unanswered second-half points to banish the memory of their poor display against South Sydney in round one, a performance that pleased the coach.

“We laid a platform for that second half by what we did in the first. The guys were hurting after last week – it was a good response,” Robinson said.

Eels coach Brad Arthur said his side were brought firmly back down to earth following last week’s big win over the Warriors and said indiscipline and poor defence were to blame for the loss.

“We can throw all the stats out, but we need to better with our defence,” he said.

“You can’t give a good team like that back-to-back sets.”

AAP imc/wk