You get Child again we get Thaler Agree with you on the high shots, Check out ben flowers red v warrington last yesr (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcoUErQ_J60) It was deserved but no where near as bad as westwoods. As mentioned before imo the best way to treat these fouls fairly is to brandish the cards correctly. If that requires the vid ref to have a word then i'm all with it.

You get Child again we get Thaler Agree with you on the high shots, Check out ben flowers red v warrington last yesr (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcoUErQ_J60) It was deserved but no where near as bad as westwoods. As mentioned before imo the best way to treat these fouls fairly is to brandish the cards correctly. If that requires the vid ref to have a word then i'm all with it.

Its amazing isn't it that earlier in the season the "in" thing was to throw the ball at a defender in or near the ruck and you got a penalty. The RFL soon sorted that but they seem to have an aversion to getting rid of deliberate foul play as demonstrated by Ferres and Westwood. They should instantly instruct (not advise) the refs to start waving red cards for these offences. Unless action is taken now someone is going to suffer a life-threatening injury. Gildart and Sutcliffe should not have been exposed to this kind of assault.

High shots like these were common in the game up until the late 1980s. Around 1989 the RFL issued an edict to referees instructing them that any contact with the head was a straight sending off. At disciplinary committees they really clamped down with an 8 match suspension being handed out very often indeed.

The effect was very positive. Thuggery decreased markedly. From that moment on if the second or third man in the tackle wrapped the ball up rather than took your head off.

Sometimes it takes a blanket approach to cut through all the confusion. Draw a line under previous interpretation. Any contact with the head and it's a red card from now on.

Whilst I agree with you Bullseye to an extent there is the grey area of how hard a player has been hit to the head.
If it is just a slap or mis timed i.e player side steps you and your hand catches his head.
Is that a straight red card when compared to what Westwood did.
The use of the VR should come in regardless.

We could send a team of 17 Robbie Burrow's out on the field & within about 20 minutes, hey presto we'd be playing against a 10 or 11 man team!

I think the contact with the head is less important than the lateness of it. Kickers can't protect themselves and whilst they can't be given free reign and there needs to be a contest the onus has to be on the tackler to get there in time.

I also think it's a conscious decision not to send players off because of the impact it has on the game as a contest. 10mins to 4 matches is an awful big discrepancy. Perhaps referees would be more willing to enforce substitutions instead?

Or RFL could eventually draw the conclusion that we all already know.

James Childs is an incompetent and should not be allowed a rugby pitch ever again

what we don't want to see is a silly knee jerk reaction from RFL and refs and somebody getting send of for something soft like a lazy arm. the westwood challenge was a straight red in almost any era of the game, and the ref bottled it. if he got sent off nobody would have any complaints and no debate.

Agree with this. A sending off and a 1 or 2 game ban would suffice.

I understand Smokey's point about refs being unwilling to red card players. Could we maybe introduce a 20 minute sin bin? Or a 10 min sin bin along with that player being subbed at the end of the 10 min sin bin. So he'd play no further part in the game but the team would only be down to 12 men for 10 mins?

I would rather a player staying on that should have been sent off than a player sent off then being found not guilty at the disciplinary.

As stated above Westwood's was a straight red in almost any era of the sport and a bad decision by the officials. If for an offence to be deemed worthy of instant dismissal it had first to tick several boxes then that 'challenge' did. Late, high, shoulder contact direct with the head - textbook example of what a dismissal should look like.

I agree. If you're not going to send off that then what will be worthy of a red card?

If I was playing I would rather be on the end of Westwood's "tackle"... someone intentionally slamming their full weight onto your spine or someone giving you a crack on the chin.

Both should have been straight reds.

how about both being kicked out of the game???

Amor red carded for high tackle after 12 mins in today's game, nice to see consistncy from the referees.....

his arm hit the ball and rose up just clipping burgess. burgess got straight up suggesting minimal contact.
difficult for thaler and only saw it after a couple of replays. fair play to him though

I would have give him 10 because it was a swinging arm, but it did bounce of the ball so red was very harsh imo, maybe all the refs are on edge after Ferres and Westwood incidents

Thaler IMO got it just as wrong as Child did the previous week.

What the game needs is neither an under or over reaction - it needs to get these decisions correct.

My first reaction was 'that's a really bad one red card', it looked awful and reckless full speed so can't blame the ref,Only on the slow mo replay did you see different. I believe the video ref should be used. That would have taken less than one minute to sort out. Obviously, at a non televised game this would not be possible and that would still have been red today were that the case but i'm a firm believer in if you have the technology then use it.

Spot on Biff.
Unfortunately for Saints and what has gone on previously Amor got a red when ten minutes would have been the right call.

After what happened last week I expected there might be one somewhere this week and I'm not surprised it involved Thaler - always had a trigger finger IMO. The referee wasn't in a great position to begin with starting with his back to the incident looking over his shoulder while retreating, possibly missed the initial impact on the ball but seeing the (indirect) contact with the head. It looked like Tommy Lee got more of Liam Harrison than Kyle Amor did.

Expect St Helens to fight this one but still lose as the judiciary back it's official.