FearTheVee wrote:
When you stand back from all the furore, what you’re left with is people saying they are going to quit the sport, the game is corrupt, it’s a disgrace . . . . that a player didn’t get a two game ban for holding someone’s wrist in a position that wasn’t dangerous to slow a PTB. I mean, come on.
It's a inexcusable result of a disastrously run system that has seen players incorrectly banned or otherwise inconsistently treated throughout the year.
Many Leeds fans were right on the edge of giving up following the three games Martin was banned for. It's close to a miracle that they didn't end Leeds' season.
This joke of a result, the overturning of what was for once a clear and justifiable ban for ugly foul play, will have a material effect on the sport's biggest event and who will be champions. And you pretend to innocently wonder why people have had enough?
There's talk that St Helens aren't to blame. I disagree, nobody forced them to chuck a hand grenade into the disciplinary system. They decided to do it despite agreeing it was foul play. They lost the appeal but saw a way to worm out of a ban on a technicality. The second appeal didn't find Knowles innocent, it agreed that the wording of the first appeal wasn't quite correct in its summation.
Incompetence at the RFL yes, but it was desperately cynical by St Helens to try and exploit it so that no ban would remain, effectively blowing up the system to get Knowles off.
It's a move which will both forever hang over their Grand Final win but more importantly has soured the views of thousands of people of our sport just when it needed them to be engaged ahead of the World Cup. Enjoy your ill gotten gains FTV, I hope you think it's worth it.
