They do?

I assume you have evidence?

Yes they do. When I get a spare hour I'll compile a list of examples if you like.

Ironic that they class contact with the ref as bad as an attack to the head. I would not be surprised if Charnley got the full three match ban, to show the laughing stock that is running our sport. RL will be looked at as an amateur sport as long as it's run by amateurs.

It's daft that Charnley is on a lesser charge than Tautai.

Why the RFL are now ambivalent about the same type of tackles they were giving substantial bans out for early in the season is strange.

I'd also far rather have seen the referee take action on the pitch against both Tautai and Charnley.

Charnley could've been sin binned and that'd be an end to it.

Tautai could've been punished too. It was obviously an illegal tackle and it wasn't hidden. One of the 3 officials should've seen it.

Despite the few that defend it it's a farcical system.

I think the system is fine. It's the decisions made by the people in the system and the lack of consistency in those decisions that's the problem.

I don't know for certain but I'm willing to bet that the members of the panel don't look at past, similar incidents when making their decisions. Which is what they should do to ensure punishments are roughly similar, at least in the same season.

The RFL should be providing guidelines/instruction for particular issues that last throughout the season and not just for the start.


As ever with RL, if we want a part of it to be better we need to get better people in it and give them the resources to do the job properly. Which probably means spending more money on the disciplinary system. As I get the impression the disciplinary meetings currently more closely resemble that of an amateur league disciplinary meeting than a pro sport.

the obvious issue is that they grade the offence, give a range of possible punishments, then go outside that.

If O'loughlin can get 1 game for the offence, then the range of punishments for that offence isnt 2-3 games its 1-3 games. That makes no sense. If there were mitigating circumstances then that is what means the punishment is at the bottom end for that grading, not that we suddenly ignore the grading.

Spot on.

It's not spot on. It should be but that's not the system. The MRP send offences to the diciplinary with a recommendation, it's up to the diciplinary as to whether they agree with it or not and then to consider the incident and any mitigating or aggravating factors. I'd rather the MRP simply decide whether to charge or not charge and the diciplinary then decide the grade and punishment which would eliminate perceived controversy such as the SOL case.

To answer the title of the thread a notion of penalising team mates of a player who received a lenient punishment in order to 'redeem' themselves is more farcical than the RFL.

Comparing the incidents as some are is none sense as they are completely different offences.

Charnley was dumb, I understand his frustration but he was dumb and deserves whatever he gets. Touching the ref is something that isn't and shouldn't be allowed.

Tautai got it very wrong. Players are well aware that they cannot enter a tackle in such a manor, from what I've seen of similar incidents grade B is probably right.

What I will say and have said on many occasions in the past it the diciplinary IMO are generally too lenient and (again IMO) most offences should get longer bans than what they do.

99% of charges receive no question or criticism. Of the 1% that do, a great many of the complaints and demands for change make little sense and would likely be detrimental to the 99% of the cases that everyone is happy with.

That was my point.

Ben Currie touched Richard Silverwood during Wires cup game against Leigh last season (search on the well known video hosting site for challenge cup 2015 warrington leigh and go to 61:30 in the match). For that innocuous little push Currie got three games reduced to two with an EGP. Any less than three for Charnley would be a farce.

Charnley 2 matches and £300 fine.

Talima Tautai pleads not guilty to dangerous contact, found guilty. 2 match ban and £300 fine.

Charnely pleads guilty gets two matches for something that at best was a fine. Tautai pleads not guilty and gets two matches for a tackle that was potentially career ending. Sorry both the system and the people involved are comical.

I thought it was a sending off offence for making contact with a match official? or have i got that wrong?

Either way, it should be clamped down on immediately!

You said it yourself, they're possible punishments, just a guide for the panel. Of course there are mitigating circumstances for every case.

I don't think its so much the people making the decisions (granted there have been one or two decisions that seems strange) but it's the grading. Its too leinient.

Stronger sentences should be handed out across the board. Cannonball tackles should be 10 games minimum.

Stuart Fielden said last night on radio yorkshire that it's the club's that can change that. They sign off the rules.

So instead of club chairman tweeting and moaning like a bloody teenagers,every week about the dsiclpinary, do something and get the rules changed.

They just throw the word consistency around but you're never going to get it as everyone disagrees on how long a player should be banned for

But the mitigation should be the reason the ban is at the lower end of the scale, not off the scale completely.

Why bother having a range of punishments for each grading if the panel can then simply decide something else?

In fact why bother with gradings at all?

Realistically what the O'loughlin case shows (and i accept its not just him and Im not trying to show a Wigan bias or anything like that) is that the gradings are essentially meaningless. A Grade C head high tackle doesnt carry a 2-3 game ban, it carries a 0 to Sin Die ban, the same as grade A, B, D, E and F.

I get that Charnley didnt do an awful lot, and 2 games seems harsh

But his punishment isnt really for him, nor really was it to protect the referee. Its to protect the referee at youth and amateur level who dont have 15 cameras protecting them.

This. A thousand times this.

I get that to a point however the rules/punishments at pro level cannot be used in that way. They have to be for the benefit of the pro competition.

For instance I think most people don't want to see a stray high arm or the odd bit of a scrap harshly punished at pro level. But at amateur level they should be very very harshly punished.

The same goes for touching the ref. I'd have been happy with a sin binning for Charnley. I get that pro players can get very worked up. It's their livlihood's and a massive part of their life and who they are. They train all week and go through often huge amounts of pain and adversity (both physical and mental) to play at a weekend. So I can understand a player losing control and doing what Charnley did. (That doesn't mean I condone it nor that I think it should go unpunished).

However at amateur level NOBODY should be anywhere close to that level of mental amplitude. So the exact same incident should get a much, much higher punishment at amateur level than at pro level. That punishment at amateur level (along with changing the backward attitudes) is what will deter the actions at amateur level, not what happens in SL.

I don't really have much of a beef with the disciplinary, I don't see the majority of infringements to pass comment.

But how come Ben Cockayne put a shot on the Hull F.C. centre (after he'd passed the ball), yet gets away scot-free?

Nah, Charnley is a professional. It is incumbent on him to control himself enough not to be grabbing a referee.

Amateur refs dont have 15 camera's there to decode whether the player grabbed them aggressively or passively, whether it was a grab or a punch, a barge or a push, the level of contact, the level of aggression. They are protected by the idea touching them is strictly prohibited, no if, buts or maybes, a strict liability offence.

Giving Charnley a slap on the wrist destroys that. I think its crazy to expect that minimising the punishment at pro level wont send out a message of increasing acceptability.