Dave T

I tend to agree. There is no one-sized approach here, but I do like the idea of pushing more regular games to be events - and that could mean moving grounds, or just doing something different. For Catalans that may be taking a game to Barcelona, for other clubs it may mean something different.

I genuinely like on the road game because I enjoy going to different places and watching RL, but we do need to be careful with this, otherwise we just end up watching Warrington v Castleford in Cardiff in front of 4,400 fans, many from the North of England. That was the least memorable 2hrs of a brilliant weekend away. That same season I also went to Anfield to watch us play Saints with 10k rattling around. Neither of those 'events' were good for the sport.

The details now appear on the RFL site. When I say details, I may be using the wrong word. I looked at the Jordan Crowther ban details, as I assumed that he can't have been banned for the sin-binning incident, and tbh, I have no idea - as the notes simply say "Other Contrary Behaviour - Grade C 1 match Ban" - no other details are given, no clock time or description of the incident. They may as well not bother tbh. Edit, in fact the notes from the hearing cases are not on at all.

I think we are at crossed purposes. I wasn't disagreeing with your post. The chat was about spoilers on Sky coverage, KM now claims his overall point is that we show every game to cater for betting companies. Which wasn't the point he made, nor relevant to the chat on whether Wilson tells us about a try 750 miles away when he gets time because a scrum is formed.

You wouldn't understand.

Jesus Christ.

ON reflection, to go back to this part of your post, I agree with this and your post contains some good points that I agree with. Where the value of speaking to players comes in is around trying to understand the root cause of why players carry out high tackles, when they have always been illegal in Rugby League. It would be good to understand whether Liam Watts feels that he regularly gets banned for high tackles because he is fatigued, or is always carrying injuries, or the 10m rule, or the pace of the game, or the coaching etc - I think your point is valid on this - we could come to the conclusion that Watts makes these high tackles because of some of the above reasons, and as you say, that could lead us to the conclusion that reduced games, more substitutions, slowing the game down etc are the way to go. I'd like to think that these things have been reviewed, discussed and considered. As part of any comprehensive review it does feel like these are important things to consider - I agree with you on that. It is however important to take any feedback in the context of who would be providing it and why and giving it the appropriate weighting. If we keep this conversation to dangerous high tackles, my personal opinion, not based on science is that we see these regularly for a few key reasons: 1 - The delta between legal (shoulders) and dangerous/high (neck/head) is really small, and players aiming for a fair tackle can be caught out by the fact that the ball carrier moves and doesn't remain at a consistent height. But this isn't new news. 2 - The punishments haven't been severe enough. Even this weekend, whilst the Hull lad didn't make full on contact, it was an act of pure thuggery, a swinging arm on a prone player. That was a choice, not fatigue. 3 - Culture. Naturally the game has a macho element to it, people still bemoan the loss of the shoulder charge, even though they often led to head contact or severe whiplash, but people still celebrate these hits, including many players when looking at social media. I dont think it is a massive surprise that they have landed where they have in terms of actions. Sure they can do all the great things with medical care, HIA's etc. but by lowering the tackle height limit by a decent amount, it makes the risk of head contact much lower. And when they do go wrong, we punish harder as a deterrent. Of course there can be unintended consequences, tacklers sharing the same space etc. but at least the defence there is that it is accidental contact and that is where the protocols come into play. I think it makes sense that they try and stamp out illegal play first. I understand why people don't like it, the game is changing, but if the game has decided it has to, then this seems like a sensible route to go down to me. I do also think there are conversations to be had around fatigue etc. but when we see Morley getting sent off after 11 seconds it does rather support the other points as being bigger issues

From what I gather, the players union was represented - maybe that's where they should be focusing their attention - I noted that Carvell did come out defending them this week. I'm not saying players shouldn't have a voice, but they don't make it easy for themselves when the story in the media this week is about them considering striking because they don't like being punished for shoulders to the face.

Your post makes no sense.

It's also not the point he made in the slightest.

You can't always get exactly what you want. Life's about compromise and the reality here is that if we go in a different direction, then the alternative to compromise is us not playing these games or internationals. They are doing what needs to be done to stage things like this. But the overall impact is a reduction in head impacts (if their actions are the right ones of course).

I don't have any bitterness towards any of the players. For the sake of the game I hope they don't win their case, but if clubs and the game were neglectful (based on processes at that time) then they deserve to win their case. But what those two examples do show is that players often don't have the best interests of players (including themselves) and health and safety in mind, so I'm not sure they are the best 'experts' to use for this kind of thing. Absolutely there is a case that communication should be good, but I think there is a strong case for taking this kind of decision away from players themselves.

Because they are two of the high profile names suing the RFL who used to have terrible records for foul play when they played the game. I thought that was obvious. The point, again, which I thought was obvious, is that players aren't necessarily the best people to decided on rules and safety.

I mean even just the general disciplinary findings. They are usually up by now.

Yeah, this is a problem, many are just not really interested - but I don;t see that as a reason not to have transparency. It's something I'm interested in, purely from a thought process point of view (and seeing the incidents through the ref/panel's eyes) - it's an interesting piece of content rather than a helpful one that will calm people down. Angry people will stay angry.

Unless I'm missing something, there are no details of this week's cases on the RFL website. This is rubbish.

I know double headers are often frowned upon, but I do think for On the Road games they can work in terms of getting fans together, pooling resources, making more of a festival of it. In the right locations they could work quite nicely imo. I do think if they are looking at getting rid of Magic, this is a route I'd go down, 3 venues each year hosting the 6 games over different weekends over the summer months.

I loved the On the Road games from years back, I had an outstanding weekend in South Wales. I broadly welcome this initiative, but we do need to be careful and do this with some care. There is a very real risk of simply moving games to Anfield, Everton etc and getting 10k rattling round in there. I went to a Saints v Wire game at Annfield years ago, and such small crowds in huge grounds aren't good experiences. I think to make these kind of things a success you have to throw lots of resources at them, we've seen at Magic, even with great value and multiple games, they don't appeal to many thousands of locals. I think in the short term we have some natural options, like Elland Road, Barcelona and places in France, but I think it would be difficult to make a case for too many other cities around the UK. Modest grounds, getting 10k in is maybe the aim.

One thing I do think that we sometimes lose sight of is that in reality, these suggestions are pretty sensible. High tackles are illegal, and rightly so, but we do appear to have just accepted them as part of the game for years, in many cases they get no more than a penalty. In fact people still celebrate instances of foul play on social media. Time will tell what the impact of the reduction in height to the armpit will make, but as we saw this weekend, just telling people not to hit the head (which has been going on for years) has done nothing to stop the likes of McIlorum and Watts from doing so. I understand people being resistant to change, but as we've seen, harsh bans isn't the solution, people just talk about striking and moaning about the disciplinary instead of the guilty parties.

Not sure of the relevance.

I didn't want yo bring Union into it, but it is a perfect example. Plenty don't like it, but the game is carrying in with packed grounds. I do like the yellow/red review system they use too.

Yup - even if they did say something, they didn't really have to go into that level of detail.

I think we get away with it somewhat because Wigan is a large ground and looks great for something like this, but the event in Penrith last year was poor and I don't find the same level of prestige at Saints when they have hosted it. Similarly, if the likes of Wire or Salford would have won the GF it wouldn't have been overly prestigious. I'd love to see us staging events like we did with Widnes v Canberra, 30k at OT, and even some of the games at Hudds, Bolton and Elland Road over the home ground games.

This really is where the game needs to be pushing this, not leaving the hosting to individual clubs. For major events we should be sharing the risk more, otherwise we will always just play at home grounds.

There is nothing about morals here. I understand why the RFL are doing it, maybe the critics need to understand too.