On the Back foot looking for the front one.
I’m pretty sure he’s been subjected to high shots when he’s actually running. In any event, we’ve seen penalties and even cards when players have literally fallen into tackles. I’m not a conspiracy theorist but players need to know where they stand. There is a lack of consistency, sometimes even within the same game.
And of course Castleford were a total bunch of angels! Then again listening to the BBC commentary I thought they were the winning side.....but of course no....even the advantage of playing in a pig sty well past its due date couldnt help them.
I'll assume your genuine but in most cases when people say consistent they mean in favour of their home team
I accepted long ago consistency is impossible without using NFL rules and stopping the game each play. Our game is a rolling fluid game and is already having that disrupted with continual breaks in play, I expect the officials to try to apply a consistent approach but accept with the speed and for the good of flow it will never happen completely.
We can come to this board, or others in ten years time and the same things will be posted unless people just accept and move on, players do
I don't know, I'll ask Niall Evalds...
Seriously, you're being disingenuous because not only do most players duck into tackles at times, but Grace doesn't do this in any sort of exaggerated manner.
The point remains that it's the perception of a whole load of Saints fans that our players are suffering from a number of unpunished contacts to the head, whilst we're getting clobbered by the disciplinary.
Personally I'm a bit baffled why the Lees and Faraimo offences were given the same bans. The committee concluded that the Lees offence was unintentional but there is no way that the Faraimo one wasn't. Anyone who watched the Fev vs Hull game would have seen that both sets of players discipline was a disgrace and that the Faraimo incident was the culmination of a player seeing the red mist and becoming desperate to put a shot on his opponent. The fact that Faraimo came sprinting across the pitch to belt the winger on the opposite side of the pitch was a clue. Yet again the committee continues to be inconsistent IMO.
When Faraimo hurtled into the tackle the commentator said he came in more like a Flymo. I laughed until I saw the replay. It was worse than Lees and as posted earlier Faraimo has already been banned whereas Lees hasn't!
4 matches at least. Farce!
Exactly , it's the perception and not one I support. I don't believe we are on the wrong end of any more decisions that other clubs. The nature of the sport and the game playing makes it so difficult for officials and disciplinary, how many times have we seen players hold their neck with a supposed crusher tackle. Fact is we have no idea if it's intentional or really hurt, we have to take it at face value and make a judgement, when it's this subjective consistency will be very difficult.
Without persistent stops in the game or players not doing as much game playing then I don't beilive it will ever be any different.
Also, the fact remains players duck into tackles, and that makes it more likely to get contact to the head, it wouldn't be intentional and certainly not the same as an intentional high shot. I played for years and gave away a few high shots and none where on purpose, usually they are due to be wrong footed or attacker falling into the tackle.
It's a contact sport some some contact to the head will happen through normal contact and after contact, not every bruise is the result of something sinister or intentional
Presumably you also disagreed with the Chairman when he also voiced concern about disciplinary inconsistencies:
http://www.sthelensstar.co.uk/sport/...kbone/?ref=rss
Personally I see no differences now in the way that the sanctions process is administered to when it was when McManus penned his frustrations. I think the DC is way to inconsistent and lacking credibility.
So has the game playing by coaches, chairmen and players. Don't throw stones from glass houses and all that
The players can sort out their act and help the refs, the rules can be changed to support consistency and fans can have some understanding of the challenge associated with officiating, or this will never change, no matter how much bleating people do on a forum and their misguided outrage
Reports of parents at a kids game the other week fighting and the ref being led from the field by police who had to be called, this anger towards refs just creates mob rule and Lynch mobs and not for the better
Help, support, understanding, working together are all things that lead to positive change, not bleating and feeling victimised
In my opinion the disciplinary process is at its worse at the moment with little parity on offences and a terrible ambiguous approach from review to charge, seasons a go the disciplinary were going to follow the NRL model on tackles around the head with stiffer penalties.
We do have the on field safety net of players being assessed for head injuries but we are still not getting to the root cause and not dealing it with the correct deterrent, the disciplinary seem to judge the reckless/carelessness/intentional attributes all the same.
IÂ’m not trying to get into an argument for the sake of it but I donÂ’t think that players just accept and move on when it really matters - during the game. When I watch all teams on Sky, I see players get rattled by bad decisions, argue with the ref and lose concentration. IÂ’ve even seen tries scored because the defending team is still looking for the penalty that never came or players are so annoyed their minds arenÂ’t on their job.
I actually wish all players could accept a refs decision, even when they know itÂ’s wrong. This is partly because refereeing canÂ’t be an easy job and a respectful distance has to be maintained to avoid chaos on the field. ItÂ’s also because refs can award penalties, march a defending team back 10 metres and show a card for dissent.
I’ve said before that I’d be happier with more distance between player and ref. Refs should be “sir” and the player should be number and team. The one thing I prefer about Union is the distance kept between official and player. And refs shouldn’t just be arrogant bully boys, they should be polite, in controlled situations, towards the players.
I agree with you that if this technology had been around in the 1960s, we’d have been ranting about Eric Clay or some other ref of the period but that’s because we’re fans. But, I think we are entitled to a better disciplinary process than we have at present. We all see, for example, bad head shots, where a player then doesn’t roll around like a soccer prima donna, go unpunished and penalties given for “technical” head shots, where only light contact is made and the attacking player is barely aware of where contact was first made. One of the penalties Castleford were awarded against us was for that type of tackle.
Incidentally, your surrender tackle argument doesnÂ’t seem to work with Stuart Cummings. Even when defenders duck low he sticks to the line that the defender has a duty of care, which they do.
P. S. Sorry for the funny A apostrophes etc. Seems not to like the iPad.
I agree with much of this and think it is a balanced surmise. I particularly the distance between officials and players. I think it doesn't help when Players are called by the first name or even worse, nickname. The game needs to be more professional in this regard.
I do think that some of the players/coaches frustrations are because the standard of refereeing has not moved on with the times. There is simply a too higher percentage of decisions which are blatantly incorrect and some of the frustrations we see are a by product of that.
I empathise with refs because the sport has become more difficult to referee as the speed, intensity and tackling techniques have changed over time. The NRL did something about this - they brought in a second ref. It shows how poorly run the sport is over here that this has yet to be introduced.
The disciplinary process should be something that is much easier to control and yet there are again far too many inconsistencies. When a balanced and cool head like McManus feels the need toaddress this in an article then there is usually no smoke without fire.
It may interest you (all) to know, there has been a recent meeting to address the dwindling number of RL referees coming into or remaining in the game. One of the most cited reasons for the problem, which is at grass roots and may seriously affect development of future talent (as there will be too few refs to stage the volume of games), is the abuse they are subjected to.
Obviously there is a big difference between SL 'standard' we should expect, and what happens on amateur pitches every weekend, but the abuse is inimical to keeping refs in the game sufficiently to raise standards, IMHO
As part of the response to the numbers problem, there has been an initiative started, to attract more people to train and function as referees. Perhaps all those on here whom complain at the standard of refereeing, would be willing to go and train and act as referees, so they can directly assist in raising that standard; or at least aide in ensuring grass roots and youth rugby doesn't suffer any further? I pessimistically expect very few would however - after all, who wants to take all that abuse......