REVENUE wrote:
Reading on quite a few sites about discipline (or lack of it) and on various forums and the comments of fans, who invariably believe the suspensions given out by the disciplinary committee are biased and sometimes making excuses for the players involved. Is there anywhere to look to show the teams and the number of red and yellow cards and suspensions clubs have incurred this season, not only in the Super League but throughout the leagues ?
Leeds are way out in front, the likes of Saints and Catalans pushing for top 2.
Is it bias? It's an interesting question as certain clubs and individuals simply do not get away with anything. I think the likes of Leeds, Cats and Saints are being looked at in more detail. Saints and Leeds are on Sky more too so are having 8 cameras reviewing them rather than one. Wigan, bar a couple of bans for fighting and the Powell one, have virtually no bans. Yet they still have Smithies, Partington and Isa in the team and are still as aggressive as ever. Bias? Impossible to say, looked at less because they have a better record? Possibly?
The issue with the system, like with a lot of things in professional RL, is the competence of the people running them. They don't manage consistency within an individual game, let alone across the sport and across weeks and months. You'll see near identical incidents treated differently in the same game all the time.
I understand why they are trying to show they have a robust system. The litigation that will inevitably come over concussion injuries is an issue, but I'm not sure banning players for completely unintentional contact and weakening the sport and the product is the right thing. It's a sport with a complete identity crisis someone mentioned on Twitter. It's marketed as tough men playing a tough sport, yet the most minor, irrelevant things are banned. Sitting players out of subsequent games isn't fair in itself either, why should a different team benefit from it? This whole campaign again late tackles? What brought that about? Why is it there? Again, it's so blatantly obvious what's a dangerous, sly attack on a passer/kicker, and what's somone just committed to a tackle making a legal tackle at the split second the ball leaves the player. Other, more competent, sports have either a step rule or a time rule in place. We have neither and ban players for making legal tackles.
It's time the sport smartened up and realised what it's doing to itself. It's blindingly obvious what a dangerous tackle is (Pryce, Powell, Tetavano etc) yet we're seeing players missing half the season for a collection of nothing incidents. Leeds have had 41 weeks of bans now, Saints and Catalans around 30-32 ish. I know from a Saints perspective there has been nothing genuinely bad all season, the Mata'utia technicality I can understand though. Between those clubs, 100 games worth of bans? Really? This results in an even poorer product on the field.
It's alright saying 'why don't they behave then'. But that angle is spoken only by people who have never played the game. You try playing 60 minutes of professional RL and see if you mistime a tackle of make a mistake. The RFL/SL have gone on this crusade for player welfare, but are getting it completely wrong. The main thing they can do to promote player safety in Super League is to remove the 6 again rule. That brings about fatigue, which brings about mistakes and mistiming. You can't claim to be promoting player safety then bringing in rules like that.
