Once were Loiners wrote:
I know we need to protect players but this is a contact sport. Of all our recent first team game suspensions the only one that for sure would have led to a ban in the NRL was Tetevano's. Across other games this round just 4 players suspended (which in itself is too many), but suggesting Leeds alone had almost as many players deserving bans from one game which wasn't exactly marked by violence??
I sincerely hope Hetherington is having a go behind the scenes. If its not working then he should go public and call them out, and sod the fines.
It’s funny you should mention the NRL because I think they’re having exactly the same issues over there at the minute, I’ve just watched a segment from Chanel 9, with Gould and Smith questioning the CEO, Andrew Abdo, about what he wants the game to look like, about their current match review panel, about the fact that players accept a certain amount of risk, and even about origin being reffed different. He gave an iffy answer about SOO being higher intensity so therefore needing to be different, then compared the risk to driving a car while still saying we have to take the decision to take that risk away from players.
A lot of this seems to stem from the Dale Finucane 2 game suspension, for what was an ugly clash of heads if anyone saw it, but shouldn’t have been more than that. There’s also been a lot of inconsistencies with hip drop tackles and suspensions, as well as Asofa Solomona not getting called up despite breaking his opponents teeth with what looked an ugly elbow on the floor.
On both sides of the world there seems to be a real disconnect atm between those running and reviewing the sport, those refereeing, those playing and us fans watching.
