That's my opinion too.

If charges were brought against Flower it would set a dangerous precedent imo. This incident is particularly bad, but every couple of weeks you see instances of thuggish, dangerous play. Is court action going to be taken in those cases too?

For that reason I don't really see any instance where a player would press charges for something that happened on the field.

You do realise punching someone in the face is illegal even if they're conscious, right? Your "go play rugby league" argument applies to every instance of fighting in sport ever.

When agreeing to take part in a contact sport you accept that there may be a certain level of physical contact that isn't accepted off the pitch.

A tackle is assault if performed off the pitch. The "it's illegal off the pitch so anything is fine on it" line isn't true. If a player used a firearm or other kind of weapon against another player on the pitch that wouldn't be left solely to the RFL. It would be taken up by police.

There is no hard and fast line that can be easily stated to describe what is acceptable and what isnt but we all generally know it when we see it. The Flower incident is borderline.

I'm not keen on police being involved, especially at pro level, but I wouldn't blame Hohaia if he did want to take it further.

You've to accept being tackled, you've to accept verbal abuse, you've to accept high tackles, punches and fights might happen to you on the rugby pitch. But anything much beyond that is a grey area that comes down to the individual. If he wants to take it further then it's up to him, as anything beyond those things isn't normal, accepted behaviour in a contact sport.

That's for pro level by the way, at amateur level it should be much, much stricter. As should the RL punishments which are usually pretty pathetic at amateur level.

It is a question of consent ultimately, in terms of the legal perspective. Playing sport you consent to contact within the rules and norms of the game. There have been cases that any law student would look at when looking at Offences Against the Person as a defence to assault/battery/ABH.

Technically speaking, I would say that this incident goes beyond the rules and norms of the sport and there would be a possibility to pursue it. However, what is the point? What are you looking to achieve? A criminal punishment would be unnecessary when action can be taken by the governing body and the Wigan club themselves.

I think we will only see anything if someone's career is ended through foul play possibly and it would be a civil matter.

If a player used a firearm on the pitch it would certainly be within the public interest for the police to intervene. And I don't think anyone has actually presented the argument that anything on the pitch is fine so I don't see the relevance in countering a non existent argument.

Some people are using the argument "if it happened on the street he'd be arrested, therefore he should be arrested" but that applies to all incidents of fighting on the field; they'd all be arrestable offences "on the street", and no, players don't have to accept being punched or otherwise struck as part of the game. Those things are explicitly excluded from the sport by virtue of the laws of the game.

The other thing to mention is that if Hohaia did make this a criminal matter his own infraction (the forearm to Flower's jaw) would surely be brought into question, since that too would be an arrestable offence "on the street". The CPS couldn't turn a blind eye to a forearm in the face on the basis that it occurred during a game of rugby if they were prosecuting the person who was forearmed in the face for retaliating disproportionately.

On here we're all rugby fans so to some extent we accept and expect to see the odd punch thrown
But today I've spent a lot of time on another type of forum where rugby would not normally be mentioned, posters on there cannot understand that the police aren't involved.

Are we too close to the sport to see how the rest of the nation would see it?.

If there's enough evidence (as in this case there clearly is from the video), then aren't there precedents where the police still prosecute even if the victim doesn't want to proceed?

I'm not suggesting Flower should be prosecuted BTW, I think any punishment he gets from the RFL ought to be sufficient.

What goes on in the field of play needs to stay there.
If players were to start and take action against their fellow professionals, the whole sport would quickly descend
into utter chaos.

Plus, we'd all start getting phone calls, asking if we'd been hurt or injured whilst playing sport !

No it doesn't when it's an extreme case like this. What Flower did should not be considered a part of the game or in the field of play. If Hohaia did take action he would completely justified and numpties like Gareth Hock would think otherwise.

Sorry I've not read the whole tread but what about pro football players who have gone to prison for on field actions. Big Dunc being one.

Following the sensible responses from the 'victim', the 'accused' and the clubs concerned, might it be time to "calm the **** down"?

'Follow up' punches on the floor happen all the time when it kicks off, but these are usually hidden in a pile of bodies. The only way you can believe he actually thought "oh, look, he's unconscious, I'll batter his lifeless body a bit more", is if you play it in slow motion but forget that it's not real time.

It was bang out of order, and an obvious straight red. But please...get a grip...especially if you've never played rugby and experienced what you feel like in the few seconds after you've been (say) elbowed in the face.

And as for all this, "Wane incites violence" malarkey, have you ever been in a rugby changing room? I've heard 100 times worse than that from countless coaches at amateur level. As far as I know, nobody with a brain cell ever took such comments literally. Otherwise, there'd be a lot more 'heads ripped off' than A&E typically sees of a weekend.

In fact, one of my earliest memories of rugby was actually as a kid (not sure what age, but definitely under 10), playing *union* (back when it was full contact for juniors) and listening to our coach coming out with stuff like this. Far from being morally corrupted, we understood perfectly well - even at that age - that we weren't supposed to take it *literally*. Moreover, we thought it was great - to us, it seemed we were being treated like real men!

Get over yourselves. It's not the worst thing ever, it doesn't corrupt young players. He screwed up, lost his team the match, missed one of the biggest days of his own life, and will cop a long ban, as well as flak for the rest of his career. Move on.

No were near bad enough for police intervention, and the RFL Rules of Conduct make that clear. Nor speaking more generally have I seen an incident that would warrant police intervention. Indeed, you could assault the referee, and it would still not constitute a police intervention, as distasteful as that is.

If you play a physical sport in an emotional atmosphere, which the Grand Final certainly was, even without a contract that says so (which there is), you are by definition consenting to been governed by the rules of the sport. Indeed, if you read the guidelines by the RFL, you will see that it is in line with the tenants of English law, in other words, authority is with the RFL and not the police to both police participants on the day and also to "sentence" them afterwards. It is only when this was an out of game action, not defined by the guidelines (which Flowers's incident is), for example a deliberate premeditated attempt at somebodies life, or putting public safety at risk that it would fall outside of the RFL authority. Indeed, apart from on here, this will not have been even considered is my bet.

None of this takes away from the fact it was a truly shocking and thuggish act, for which I hope we see the maximum ban (8 games, Grade E) and associated fine.

The police will be forced to 'investigate' because they'll have received a load of letters written in green ink by lunatics. But it'll quite rightly go nowhere and just waste everyone's time.

I doubt they will be to honest. I expect a one line response from them, if anything at all referring it to the games governing body, which is already compliant with the tenants of the law.

If it happened on the street Flower would be perfectly entitled to claim self defence and he'd probably get off with no charge, maybe even a well done.

The if it happened on the street argument fails because on the street what he did is exactly what any sensible person would do, eliminate the threat as quickly as possible and make sure the threat does not persist.

On the pitch, as difficult as it may be, you take the blow and smile as the aggressor walks off for 10 minutes or the rest of the game while your kicker is lining up for two points. Had he done that then I'm sure Wigan would have won and everyone would be commending him on his restraint in the face of an assault from Hot Head Hohoia.

Actually, if you want to be an internet lawyer, the second punch on the floor would count as "excessive force" and he would be liable to arrest for ABH

Kind Regards

King James

Of course there is a level of violence that would warrant a criminal prosecution, but this wasn't it. Bear in mind that once the first prosecution happens the lawyers will scent blood and push for every minor contact to be subject to legal action. It wouldn't be long before no contact sport is played due to the risk of litigation.
So before people call for Flower to be prosecuted, you might want to step back and think of the long term consequences for the game.
Be careful what you wish for.

Bal, are you saying that 1) you can contract out of the criminal law and 2) ANYTHING that happens during a game falls outside the courts' jurisdiction?
If you are can you direct me to the relevant authorities as I am genuinely interested

Lol.

I agree.

Regards,
Tony Martin, now out of prison.

1) No 2) No

By playing Rugby League, especially contracted professional sport you are however entering into an expectation of physical and occasionally aggressive contact sport. You are not saying that foul play or aggression is necessarily acceptable, but that the officials of the game, be it the pitch official or the disciplinary panel, which again operate within the guidelines of English tenant law including sentences, which include match suspensions and fines are an appropriate body to deal with such incidents rather than the police. Simple enough. There are many sports that take that even further, for example boxing. If the world of sport and law took such a literal conversation of law on the street to law in the game, virtually all contact sport would become sanitised.

I clearly gave two scenarios, out of many on point 2) in my last post to demonstrate my belief that not everything falls into this category.

As it goes, according to the BBC, the police have indeed decided to look at the matter and so I guess we will have to wait to see the outcome of that. I still think they will say that the RFL dealing with the matter is appropriate, especially as there doesn't seem to have been a criminal complaint, either from the victim or the public.

If you punched somebody that was unconscious on the ground, and the police saw it, provoked or not, your getting arrested and charged.

The law defines it as excessive force.

The target was already neutralized. You never do a man on the deck. He'd have been charged on the street and rightly so.

In the space of about 2 seconds he threw 2 punches. It's not as if he threw the first, admired his handiwork and then followed up with another. He punched once, immediately dived on his attacker and punched again.

I was pretty horrified by it but I think the fact that it was on national telly at a showpiece event causing way more controversy than would be usual is the saddest thing about it. I say this with the knowledge that the 'victim' has tried to brush it off and has forgiven it. Lance elbowed him in the mush and the first 'standing' punch is almost universally accepted as legit by people in RL. I have some sympathy with Barnacle Bill's point about the speed at which it happened - a massive rush of blood, against the rules, stupid etc but punishment should stay within the sport in my opinion.

Anything outside what one could reasonably expect as a part of RL could not have been consented to as part of the rules of the sport. Things that happen on the field arent outside the law, simply affected by it.

This has been considered by GMP. I have no doubt that a very strong argument could be made for prosecuting Flower on the point of law. I have no doubt that if Hohaia had said he wanted it moving forward it would have done.

I question right now the point of doing so and with no one wanting to, i cant see that it will.