Please explain how he suffers such injuries if there's no contact to the head?

Is contact to the head illegal in Rugby League?

Does MacGraf Lieuluai make contact with Matty Russells head?

If you answer yes, please explain why he should be exempt from punishment

This is blatant proof of foul play he should have walked. How do you break someone nose, cheekbone and knock out two knashers without serious amount of contact to the head.

I have seen players sustain exactly those injuries making a tackle, does that mean they have been fouled?

So Warrington didn't have a say in their own comeback and as a more experienced play off team didn't have anything to do with Widnes building a lead in the first place you know....'' awful game management decisions, stupid passes, penalties, etc' ?

I think you're a bit confused BOD confusing

Most likely as players 9/10 sustain those injuries through illegal contact with the head

Russell was the ball carrier.

If you can't comprehend why that would make a difference there's no point correcting you.

poor lad if he has had that much facial damage.

So who to choose because its obvious from the displays this weekend its Catalan and Warrington

Saints will pick the winner of Catalan/Hudds. Fo' sho.

Just watching it back now, definitely hit him in the face with his shoulder, he brought his arm up AFTER the contact, that's saved him from going off in my opinion.


He's not gone to tackle Russell, he 's gone to hit him at high speed, which is a little bit reckless

Most tackles involve attempting to hit the opposing player at high speed. That's what rugby league players do. That distinction is false.

I absolutely understand Warrington fans feeling aggrieved at what's happened to Russell, who would have been a key player in their push on Old Trafford, but let's not try to create a drama where there is none. It was tackle which connected with the head carelessly, not a deliberate attack to the head. I'll be honest, until I saw the replay from the angle Carney and Wells showed after the game, I thought Thaler got it spot on, as it was very difficult to see any direct head contact from the angles shown, and at full speed. I thought the knock-out was due to his head hitting the floor after the impact. But clearly, direct impact on the head did take place. He'll get charged with a careless high tackle, of the sort which does take place in every game, but which - thankfully - doesn't usually have such awful consequences.

Let's put the pitchforks away. RL is a high-speed collision sport, and occasionally those collisions go wrong. It doesn't mean the players are actively trying to seriously injure each other every time someone gets hurt.

To be fair to thalet he asked the vid refs opinion and even at slow motion they couldnt see a head tackle!! Then again they also did see a widnes arm that didnt exist for the second try even after looking half a dozen times. Ganson is great at vid ref aint he

Yes, but the injuries susstained have no bearing on the legality of the tackle, if you cant understand that there is no point correcting you

Leuluia was attempting a legal tackle, but Russels attempt to regain tge ball put his body in a poor position to recieve that tackle, I dont see what could have been done to avoid it

As RH has alluded to RL is a high speed contact sport, these things happen unfortunatly

and when they do the culprit should be punished, be that by a penalty, Red Card or being cited and banned after the fact.

Contact with the head is illegal, the burden of care lays with the defender and the attacking player falling, bending, stooping or any other 'ing' is only a mitigating factor.

If he catches the ball cleanly, that tackle wraps him up quite nicely.

As he knocked on, he drops his head trying to gather the ball. The tackler has a split second to pull out - sadly he's not super human so is unable to do so.

An unfortunate accident. No card necessary.

YES, AND THE VIDEO TEAM OBVIOUSLY CONCLUDED THAT RUSSELS BODY POSITION WAS A MITIGATING FACTOR

DERRR

no point carrying on this little discussion, I'l let you have the final word

Thanks, I'll have it then.

It mitigates the punishment it doesn't remove it!

No need to be condescending about it, can't you just have a sensible discussion without resorting to little schoolgirl behaviour

Strange then, that no official saw fit to call foul play. The referee didn't see it that way, he called the linesman on who agreed, and the video ref reviewed it and saw similar. Cummings agreed.

Lieuluai did nothing wrong. He even went low himself, nothing wrong with his technique. However, the fact Russell had knocked-on and was lunging forward for the ball meant neither player was able to time the collision correctly. You even see Lieuluai realise, as Russell moves forward reaching for the ball, that the collision is coming too quickly and he turns his head just prior to impact. Regardless, no intent, no foul play.

There isn't always blame, and just because there's been a nasty collision and injury doesn't necessarily mean the tackler was reckless or negligent in their duty of care. Sometimes it's nothing more than a consequence of big, powerful men trying to flatten one another at high speed.

Yes, contact to the head - clearly, I think we all saw that - but for me Russell lunging forward in is the main reason for the clumsy collision. The officials clearly agreed. Nothing to penalise, pure accident, knock-on is the call.

Nothing wrong with your argument but we see it differently, despite the match officials not penalising it the coming days will tell us whether Lieuluai has a case to answer or not.

For what it's worth, and I've stated this a few times already, I don't think that Lieuluai had any intent to commit a foul.

Despite what I've said I would be amazed if the RFL took no action. I expect they'll warn him over his technique, or possibly a token punishment for the fact the impact was to the head. Even though I don't think Lieuluai did anything wrong, it was still a bad collision and they'll probably conclude he could have done more to avoid it.

well at least his injuries aren't as bad as first thought.

You really are special aren't you?

See this is the issue, the ref's mic clearly picked up him saying "shoulder to shoulder, no contact to the head, it's a knock on". Well you only need to view it once to realise that there definitely was contact to the head, and that can be further proved by the injuries sustained.

Regardless of whether the head was directly attacked (it was) any tackle that results in a player knocked out cold before he hits the floor, and needing a stretcher with a neck brace and an oxygen mask cannot be legal in this game. I hate the current shoulder charge rule as much as the next man, and I certainly don't want us to lose the last bit of biff in the game, but that incident was a straight red any day of the week - especially after 2 similar incidents have resulted in straight reds in the past few weeks

I agree with Wigan fans: Russell should get a short ban and letter about his technique for the temerity of keeping his eyes on the ball while an innocent opponent is trying to him.

Russell wasn't in possession when he got smashed. There was direct contact with the head. If Moon & Walmsley a send off, so was that. And so was Flynn.

If you look at the hit Webster took when I think it was Soliola caught him full in the face with his shoulder. Under the contact to the head rules, that was also a send off.

The inconsistency in the use of video refs is concerning. Both the Moon & Walmsley send offs were looked at several times by the VR, but Thaler chose not to.

There's also the issue of what should have been a try to Widnes following the hit on Russell. The decision was knock on against warrington. That meant it was free play to Widnes & they appeared to score off it. A fundamental error from the officials not to check this.

Ganson & Child awarding the Flynn try was so utterly shocking an error, you have to seriously question the competence & integrity of these people.

I find Cummings interjections in commentary to be laughable most of the time. Makes the game look stupid & reveals just what a pathetic agenda he had in place when in charge of the match officials department.