By last year's standards its 2-3 games. Do we go from that to 0 or meet in the middle at 1. It should have been a yellow though.

it's Saints, so probably a 1 match ban for Rhyse Martin

Wouldn't have a problem with him not getting any ban. Didn't think it was more than a penalty tbh. Would have been interesting if it had gone to the vid ref as cover coming across.
Like the fact the refs are making quicker decisions though.

Can't see anything other than an easy saints win but miracles happen

I have no idea what game you were watching but you’re wrong on both counts. Of course Broadbent was stepping and made himself small to go on the inside, Welsby overshot - first contact was actually on the ball after rewatching and went up over his shoulder and onto the head. Both feet were on the ground on initial contact and was lifted on contact as both players spun each other.

I’m fine and agree with other on here saying the key is consistency and wouldn’t think it’s a ban or a penalty try if it were the other way around either. In fact you take that tackle out of the situation and it’s wholly unremarkable. There’s a tackle a couple of sets later where Lees takes a forearm to the face (and gets a penalty) which as a careless/reckless shot perspective was far worse, but definitely nothing more than an in game penalty either.

I was watching the same game as you but without the red vee tinted spectacles.

It was a reckless high tackle and should have been at least a yellow.

Only serious foul play should be banned. Are we that desperate to hope an opposition player gets a ban to give us a chance?!
Not for me….

Im not bothered as long as its consistent, i think a yellow or red and no ban is the fairest way to go, why should we get the advantage that Cas should have had.

Was the Cas player badly injured? If not then penalty and get on with the game. We don’t want to go back to last season…..

If we’re serious about head injuries then direct contact to the head like that should be punished.

It was. They got a penalty!

Someone will cop a yellow for an identical tackle in the coming weeks I'm sure. Then we can bring it up again.

I genuinely have no idea what incident you are watching.

As for clear red card, give over. We've all seen clear red card in our time and that was nowhere near.

We shouldn’t be penalising (or worse) based on the severity of injury, that way lies chaos my friend.

Free to play and quite right too.

Panel said he had no case to answer

Pity for you that there is video and photographic proof that first contact ( and that's what the mvp look at ) that both feet are on the floor and contact is shoulder and chest.

Pity for me? look it matters not a jot, Saints could play with 10 men on Friday and wed still get walloped.

I called it as I saw it and to me it looked a bad one, the MRP disagree and their opinion is what counts.

I hope there’s consistency going forward.

Watching it on tv it looked pretty bad.
Watching back on reply it looks like the first contact was chest and then head.
Don`t think it warranted a red card, yellow at the most.
The late hit/push in the back on Griffin from Lees looked worse to me.

I agree that it looked far worse when viewing live than on the replay. It could be argued that it was accidently reckless, but not intentionally.

He did put in a few other careless tackles throughout the game though, and should be instructed by the club to keep his tackling in check before he does hurt somebody.

The concept of ‘consistency’ does not exist, as humans involved and interpretation of individual incident will be different each time.

Consistency comes from applying the same reasoning, judgement and decision based on like criteria. For total transparency, that criteria, and the decisions that flow from that, should be made public in advance I.e. this is what the MRP will consider in any given case and these are the sanctions that will apply if those criteria are met.

It's simply not good enough to say it was x and y after the event and therefore we've decided z.

It seems you don’t understand what the word “direct” means, as it was not direct contact to the head… it was indirect, due to coming up off the shoulder

Never a ban. Hoping we get far less bans this year than last in general. Last year was a proper farce. And to be fair the disciplinary can’t really afford to go on as they were anyway, Saints drained them of any and all credibility with numerous successful appeals and then the Knowles fiasco so they’ve got to change something. Seems like they’re making an effort to give fines as a deterrence rather than bans for minor incidents this year

And how did that conversation go when it was had with Bentley and Tetavano ?

I posted it after watching the game live on TV that was my opinion at the time, im perfectly happy with letting the MRP who rewatch it in slow motion and from all angles to make their decision based on that.

That ok?

As fans we need to stop calling for bans and cards. We ask these bloke to play the game at 200mph. We bring fresh, 18 stone blokes off the bench, then complain about some mistimed tackles. We don’t have to end up like footy fans…..

Hopefully we're seeing signs that last year's nonsense is gone. It was a knee-jerk reaction to fears of litigation down the track, which if continued would have turned the sport into a complete lottery without doing anything about the actual risks.