Really? When a person decides to play rl he consents to a degree of force being used against him that would not be acceptable on the street. I can't believe anyone would consent to being punched in the head whilst unconscious.
We've had a few thugs in our game who have gone way beyond the pale and if a prosecution of Flower or someone else reduces such an incident then the sooner the better.
As for it not being a "risk to the public" what relevance does that have? It was witnessed by 10's of 1000's live not to mention those watching on television.
8 game ban, have a look at the sentencing guidelines, he'd be lucky to avoid jail.

i dont believe they would. A punch is a well established part of the game (rightly or wrongly) and there is an expectation of its possibility. What Flower did is entirely different.

I'm not saying the complaint would get anywhere. They would take the nature of the sport, and its governing body into account and likely dismiss it.

A punch is a well established [itransgression[/i. That isn't the same as it being a part of the game. Either the police are duty bound to investigate a complaint where an assault has occurred or they are not. They could not, without any impropriety, investigate Flower without investigating Hohaia.

Just because you have set up a false dichotomy, doesnt make it true.

The police/cps would only be bound to move forward such a complaint if a reasonable person would not expect such an offence to happen during a game.

Who told you that, and why did you believe them? There are lots of scenarios where one might reasonably expect a crime to occur but it does not relieve the police or the CPS from their duties to follow it up. The assault Flower committed occurred in the context of he himself being assaulted, albeit to a lesser degree. There is no way any investigation could turn a blind eye to that.