CASTLEFORD TIGERS head coach Craig Lingard has spoken about the ban handed to Liam Watts following a week of controversy.
Watts saw red in Castleford’s 32-4 defeat to Wigan Warriors last weekend and was then handed a four-match ban at a Tribunal with many feeling that it was harsh.
Now Lingard has spoken about the appeal process and why he felt the Tigers and Watts had mitigating circumstances in the incident.
“It’s tough but it can happen at any time of the season regardless of the incident that happened,” Lingard said.
“We’ve not really let it impact us a great deal, it’s not impacted our training and to be fair to Wattsy (Liam Watts) he has been outstanding in training.
“He knows he will be sitting down for a month but he will do as much as he possibly can to prepare the boys for the next three weeks or so.
“We went to downgrade it, we could not get rid of it altogether because ultimately he did make contact with the ball carrier’s head.
“We felt there was mitigation and that we had a decent case to answer. We thought it was secondary contact from Joe Westerman that moved Tyler Dupree’s head into Wattsy’s tackling space.”
Lingard does feel that the wording around mitigation needs to be looked at.
“We thought Tyler Dupree’s contact was a lot lower than his previous carries but, in the wording in the points of mitigation, it states that a player needs to rapidly lose height or unexpectedly loses height so that was dismissed.
“It’s such a big talking point this week. I’m in support of the way rugby league is moving in this, we know there will be learning curves and a need to adjust but we need to reassess and reevaluate.
“I certainly think that taking the ball carrier’s height into consideration is something we need to. We were concerned before the season started that people would run bent over which we were told it wouldn’t be allowed to happen, but there have been certain points where players are learning too much.
“I don’t think Tyler Dupree meant to lean either I think it was just one of those occasions where he fell faster than in previous tackles.
“The initial response from the referee was that he was falling down but the dismissal report was a little bit different from that. We need to have a little bit of reassessment of the player height and change the words over mitigation.
“We have a meeting with Robert Hicks after this press conference to go through some of the issues and Rob is really open with his lines of communication. We want to get a better understanding of the grey areas. Everyone has got an opinion.”
So how did the Tigers manage to downgrade Charbel Tasipale’s Grade C Head Contact to Grade B.
“We got that downgraded because we could prove he slowed into impact, it was the carry off the kick off.
“He slowed into impact and he made a deliberate attempt to duck under contact, his back was bent at an angle and his legs were bent.
“We proved the case that he made an attempt to avoid the ball carrier’s head.”
The Castleford boss also held his hands up, stating that he a “bit reactive” to the card and ban.
“You’ve always got to reevaluate and reassess and you will never get everything 100 per cent right from week one.
“There will always be things to happen. There were other cards given as yellow that we felt it could be a red and we got it the other way round.
“We know there will be discrepancies and that’s the issue for me there are too many grey areas.
“Who is determining the use of force and the level of force in the contact? We are not using the mouthguards technology. It is subjective.
“When you read the dismissal report, it said a high level of force but who determines that? I was a bit reactive and I hold my hands up to that.
“Wattsy can be a little bit better and bend his knees into contact. It’s a learning curve, we are trying to change players’ habits after a ten-week off-season.
“I thought Tony Smith put it well, you don’t want to go from zero to 100 and hit players with big sanctions.
“It seems a little bit excessive for the tackle that it was. he didn’t come out of the line to whack someone, he has made contact with a players’ head unintentionally and a four-game ban seems a little bit too harsh.”
So how did Watts react to the ban?
“He was disappointed like everyone was. He is quite resilient and came back in Tuesday and it was business as usual for him.”
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