Looked to me as though Poore was trying to [iavoid [i standing on Withers head, but was unable to as both were involved in what the Union boys may describe as a 'rolling maul' and his leading foot just came down where Withers head happened to be at that moment in time.

I also can't believe how generous you guys are re 'leading with the head'. If he means it - and he did seem to lunge - then it's assault (as well as a straight 'Red'). If not, and he hasn't braced himself, he risks a serious neck injury (to himself). I also think Ganson got it right. He awarded a penalty for a dangerous tackle (accidental or otherwise), said he wasn't saying anything was deliberate and put the incident on 'report' for a panel to look at over tea and hob-nobs. As he said to Dobson (who was a bit vociferous all night - especially to a disciplinarian like Ganson) '...I could deal with this very differently', which I presume to mean flash a Red in addition to anything else.

I've never left a game and thought, "it needed a few more shoulder charges". Happy to see players fronting up and making a proper tackle.

A bit of a knee jerk by the RFL & personally I don't agree with their decision. At the very least this is something that should have been brought in at the end of the season rather than after a few games.

agree that it should have been implemented at either the beginning or end of the season, like some of the more stupid rules that the RFL decided to implement

I can't wait to see what some amateur games are going to look like - as well as implementing the half a dozen new rules brought in for this season, a 15 year old ref is also expected to rule on what is, or isn't, a shoulder-charge.

I hope the YJL has plenty of willing victims to sit on their disciplinary panels!

Just watched a compilation of shoulder charges on a popular video sharing website and it has to be said that nearly all were cheap shots on a player who hadn't seen what was coming at him. Can't say I'll miss them massively.