Hardaker is a reprehensible individual. I would find it difficult to support him if he played for my club. He is an all round bad egg.
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Full of it on Twitter, thicko. He really suits the rent boys ethos.
4matches for Joel Tomkins. No matter what he does, Hardaker seems to get the benefit from the disciplinary. Other players have their record count either for or against them.
I suppose you could argue it was a very crap headbutt, more of a move forward with the head which didn't really connect properly. But just because he didn't execute it properly shouldn't mean he gets off lightly, and doing it really late in the game indicates to me that he'd been lining it up and did it when he assumed he'd get away with it. There's always the thought that on the field the one doing the retaliating gets done more than the perpetrator because everyone's eyes are on the scene after the initial incident, but for it to then be confirmed by the Panel is ludicrous really. If someone tries to headbutt your mate you thump him. When the one in the firing line is your brother, even more so.
If you don't want players taking care of their own business on the field you need to give them a reason to trust that the game will take care of it for them in the form of suitable punishments. This ruling means that players are not going to step back when something like happens because they'll know hardly anything will happen, so swing away while you can because the RFL will do nothing to stamp it out.
You give Hardaker far more credit than I would if you think there was ANY thought process involved.
The punishment was appropriate based on level of risk. By which I mean if he hah pulled his head right back and gone for a full blooded headbutt but due to whatever only dealt a glancing blow then 5+ ban. What he did was never going to result in much more than embarrassment (and a well deserved slap from Tomkins). Tomkins problem was they were deliberate, full on punches to the head with potential to cause concussion.
This is only my reading of it, I don’t like either player so am certainly not defending anyone’s actions.
That’s what I hate about these things, it’s very much based on the outcome and not the intent. If he had broke Tomkins nose or similar the ban would have been likely 6 games, but because he did no damage he’s just a silly sausage. That’s not how it should be and it’s systems like that, that is the start of players rolling around trying to make things look worse. Watching football makes me puke with those shenanigans.
I see it slightly differently, if he had pulled his head right back and gone for a “full on” headbutt, even if he had missed or dealt a glancing blow then I think he would have got a much sterner ban. My reasoning is that there would have been intent and the capacity to inflict serious injury. In the actual case the chance of any injury, let alone serious injury was slim to non existent. It was petulant not dangerous.