if mcguire does get a ban, the whinos have got silverwood to bail them out, nailed on he would have got the game.

IMO it's poor form that West Yorkshire is over represented on the disciplinary panel (or at least it was last time I saw a list of members - it's hard to check because there doesn't seem to be a full list on the RFL's website, which is typical). If anyone has the info and can post it on here I'd be interested to see what the make up of the panel currently is. It may be that the good men of Leeds, Bradford etc are entirely fair when they are judging players from other areas (or their own) but this is also a question of perception - justice must be seen to be done. No matter how impartial the decision making process actually is, the suspicion of bias will always remain if the panel is seen to be unbalanced.

I've long said that the RL disciplinary tribunal should be chaired by a judge, like its RU counterpart. As in so many other areas (apart from the actual game itself, thank God!) RL has a lot to learn from RU.

The Chairman of the disciplinary committee which decided this was Peter Charlesworth who is a high court judge,

Thanks - actually having looked him up it looks like he was a circuit judge, but I won't split hairs, a retired circuit judge is fine! Does he chair all the panel decisions?

I'm not aware of a RL team called 'West Yorkshire,' so in what way are you suggesting that panel would be prone to bias?

one of the three who sat on the mcguire 'case' was former rhinos assistant coach graham hallas