Scarey71 wrote:
It seems weird that Keighley wanted to do nothing but fight, weren't they the ones squealing when Sharleston did it to them? Pontificating about how despicable it was?
When they played rugby they looked quite decent but they gave so many penalties away for headshots and technical offences I think they got frustrated. That then put them off the good stuff and it became a bit tit for tat. I think the weather closing in didn’t help either as that put a halt to both temas spreading the ball so it became a war of attrition .
There were a couple of incidents that should have been dealt with better and I think the young ref will learn a lot from that game. I think if he’d laid the law down early things wouldn’t have got out of hand. Two incidents spring to mind. One where Liam Johnson appeared to tackle one of their players late should have resulted in a yellow card for him and the retaliator who then threw punches. Instead it wasn’t properly dealt with and it led to further incidents as players sought retribution. Then the spear tackle that the ref only blew for on the touch judge’s intervention. That only resulted in a penalty when a yellow card would’ve been more appropriate.
The incident with Samir getting red carded also warmed things up but he only had himself to blame.
Each of these incidents and other head shots and niggle just wound players up and the all in brawl had a bit of inevitability about it. Like I said I was disappointed with Ryan and Minchella for getting red carded. I can understand the frustration but Ryan in particular got sucked in big style. His Kelvin Skerrett style contribution to the last brawl was way OTT and he deserved the red card. That sort of thing is for pub rugby and I was surprised at him as he’s never even been spoken to by a ref before. I hope Minchella avoids a ban as he’s very important to us. In fact I thought our best attacking came when he combined with Keyes.
