Thanks CLEARWING and TVOC for the clarification................

You are so gonna get sued by him for that comment

Isn't Ropati part time? Does the insurance cover wages from another job other than his players wages?


His upper arm? So not a head clash then? Or Chase's shoulder?

Careful, that in itself is a potentially libellous comment. To repay the favour though Rangi Chase will be putting the case together on behalf of Gronk.

How many actual matches did that ban cover?

The present system is fine but they should add a match or two to each of the tarrifs for foul play, IMO. And chase is a nasty who did something similar to Sinfield last year. You can tell he's a when his mates in an international try and injure him. He'll get his.

I still think the RFL should incorporate more from the NRL system, where players get points for offences, which rather like those on your drivers' licence accumulate. So a player could face a ban for persistent infrigements individually not worth a ban, or find they increase their suspension if they do something worse. Similarly a player who regularly makes head high tackles (as did Morley in the NRL) will quite soon find themselves staring at longer bans than other players. The points would be valid for a rolling 2-year period.

On the penalties for individual offences, I think the RFL really struggles with what might be termed 'extreme' offences, excepting ones not under their control such as drugs bans. In the NRL they have a category of very serious offences (can't remember the name) that don't have the usual rules applied, and are viewed individually - these offences being beyond the range covered by the usual criteria. This enables them to potentially administer much longer bans for what are deemed very serious offences. IMO just like refs sometimes put players on report for what are sending off offences, the judiciary sometimes uses the grading system to hide offences that should be treated differently.

I agree that the RU case cited was one that suited everybody except the injured player. The RFU could claim to be tough, citing '32 weeks', whereas the actual ban in playing terms was far less severe. IIRC I've seen this type of suspension happen in RU over here as well.

BTW do people see it as wrong to take into account the actual damage done by foul play? I don't have a problem with damage being taken into account. Off the field if you punch someone your penalty will vary dependent on the damage done - from nothing through ABH, GBH, manslaughter etc. Why would offences committed on the field not be treated similarly?

I agree BR with regards to the damage done been considered when the punishment is decided.

Playing devil's advocate here - this is not my view but the RFL has also to take into account welfare of the club. If Rhangi Chase was suspended for 8 weeks - the minimum in my view - that would put an end to any hope Castleford have of making the play offs. It would also have a financially detrimental effect on the club as fans would not want to watch a losing side. I would imagine Castleford's finances are not far removed from Bradford's and even a small loss of revenue could be catastrophic.

I see yer point sal but that falls soley at Chase's feet imo he's their "Marquee" and highest paid player so he should have to face some of the financial burden.
It's not the RFL's responsabillity imo to wory about any kind of £££££ implications for the club if their player is banned.

It may not be their job to worry about it, but it could be in the back of their mind. After all, surely the RFL can only afford to prop up a certain number of clubs

I don't think its wrong, but it should only have a bearing on it. To a certain extend then length of absence is down to a certain amount of luck.

Using the recent spear tackle by L'Estrange. In theory, that could have ended Peacock's career, had he have been very unlucky.

In the real world example, I don't think it makes that much difference in a like for like situation. If you hit someone once, and it just happens to be a cracker I'm not certain you'd get a harsher sentence than if you hit someone with a normal punch. Where there is extra punishment and usually extra damage is where multiple blows are struck, which I don't think is comparable in this case

Cas shouldn't be a 'one man team' then

All clubs have marque players - could you see the RFL banning Sam Tomkins for 8 weeks or Kevin Sinfield or James Roby?

If they deserve it yes

Tad - you don't get much more blatant than Chase on Saturday so what would you have to do to get 8 matches and no matter what Tomkins did he would never get 8 matches, he is the biggest draw in the sport.

That should make him more accountable for his actions then. He should be under even greater scrutiny to make sure he doesn't get anything that wrong.

All pigs are equal mate, some more equal than others.

Also Playing devil's advocate here Sal
Would the RFL has also take into account the welfare of the Catleford Tigers clubs finances if Rangi made that self same challenge on one of SL's so called marque players?
Lets say for arguments sake that this serious injury was sustained by Sam and also in a game that Cas needed to win to make the play offs a reality and thus secure their financial future

I know which side of the fence they would be sitting on then!

Shoot them all and let the Rugby Gods sort them out.

thats on youtube 'Leeds 26 vs Widnes 12 (1989) 1/2' the challenge on offiah by gibson in the 2nd part isn't very clever either

By the fact the game was concluded and Cas would either be in the play offs or not the punishment would not affect Cas' future. I suspect if that challenge had of been on Tomkins Chase would have got more than 3 games.

Yes

If a player lets his side down he has to be punished. If we have a "boys club" in terms of who gets away with what then the game really will go down the toilet

Forgot how bad that was - the ref (Holdsworth??) got a bit of shoving of his own going on - you wouldn't see Ganson risking his good looks by getting in the middle like that today.

I agree that if a players career is ended by the tackle then no, the offending player should not be banned for life, at least not automatically. If the offense is stupidly aggressive and pre-meditated though why not? If you deliberatly end someones career why should you be allowed to play again? Do we really want these people in our sport? Say for instance that Issac Luke had broken Chases leg and that meant Chase couldnt play again. Surely its fair to stop Luke playing as he did it on purpose. It was OTT and deliberate.

As for if a player isnt injured then clearly there should still be a penalty. I would hope that the penalty would fit the crime in these instances. If, for example, Chase's tackle had just given Ropati a little tooth ache then you could argue three matches was sufficient.

We should go to an eye for an eye system, where if your badly injured by serious foul play, then you get 1 free shot at someone, and its televised on boots and all.