Dave T

The vast majority of the men's World Cup was underwhelming really. There was a lot to like about the whole concept of RLWC 2021 in its entirety though, and Dutton was a major part of that obviously. Good luck to him.

There is a car park around 75 yards away, costs about 3 quid. Wasteland basically between train station and ground. Perfectly fine, I park there regularly. Few car parks in town with reasonable pricing, maybe 10 to 15 min walk.

Or last year's England match where all seats were sold out but only around half of them had bums in them.

Ultimately all RL can do is be the best version of itself. So far this season we have put on a. Great show in front of decent crowds in nice grounds, with the odd exception. We have brought in professional people, and the talk is all about driving club standards up. The narrative has been taken back from the naysayers and we've just broken the SL record for attendances. Do the right things, the results will follow, generally speaking.

My gut feel is that 5 matches for these incidents is fine (they are pretty serious bans) , but there are questions about process that should be answered. Dudson was charged with E which has 4-6. It is surprising that with his record he hasn't received the maximum. I'm not sure what could be used as a mitigant in that incident. I'm not sure Knowles or anyone associated with him can have any complaints though. 5 matches for a tackle that rules a player out for 12m and is his 9th charge in 10 months feels about right.

An issue I have with Knowles' punisent is that the press release doesn't acknowledge why he has been sentenced outside of the punishment range. Surely taht should be part of the communication. We shouldn't have to wait to read the small print tucked away in the hearing notes on the disciplinary page on the RFL site. We have Philbin getting 2matches for a D, Knowles getting 5 for a D, and Dudson getting 5 for an E. That really should be explained to fans/media. Obviously we can work it out in terms of past record, but our comms should be far better.

We can all just make numbers up. I say £100m a year.

I don't think players were getting banned for non red-card offences. I think we got in a bit of a mess because we bottled sending them off. So refs bottled it, but the disciplinary still did their job. Now we just leave them on the field, and don't ban them afterwards either. There is a reason these late hits in particular are becoming part and parcel of the game imho.

Indeed. We have just decided to condone more foul play. Nothing more, nothing less.

5 matches is a substantial ban. I don't see the argument that Dudson has not been heavily (rightly) punished. Similar with Knowles, they have shown they are taking it serious by banning him higher than the grading. Mcguire's falls into the category of more serious incidents, like gambling and drug offences.

That could have been addressed under the old system. In fact it was - the season before had the same system and wasn't as harsh. This system has just made the same offence be punished less severely. A Grade D offence is a Grade D offence whether the ref saw it that way on the pitch or not.

Jesus. What is it with Bower and Shaw being so upset with serious foul play being punished?

I thought Mcguire was charged at F which is 6 plus. He got 7. Knowles has been given 5 matches though at grade D.

The new system doesn't mean that. It is simply a lowering of the grading.

It's funny how they highlight a fine to try and gaslight us into thinking that this isn't a softening of the disciplinary, despite the fa t there was always a fine that accompanied a ban anyway.

So last season, based on poor record and a Grade D offence, Knowles would get 5 matches. This season, it's 3 matches.

GRADE NORMAL SUSPENSION RANGE PREVIOUS SUSPENSION RANGE A 0 – Fine 0 – 1 B Fine - 1 1 – 2 C 1-2(and fine) 2 – 3 D 2-3(and fine) 3 – 5 E 4-6(and fine) 4 – 8 F 6+ or period suspension (and fine) 8+ or period suspension

Grade Normal Suspension Range A NFA - Fine B Fine – 1 match C 1–2 matches D 2-3 matches E 4-6 matches F 6+ or suspension period

I think it's the difference between getting the low end and the high end in each band. So you won't get a higher band, but you'll get the higher end of the grading of that offence.

Agreed. We've made a bit of a balls up of the disciplinary tbh. The system was clear last year, it's bands overlap and are too low now.

I'm not sure turning down, say, a £200m 5 year deal makes sense at all.

In the last 10 months Morgan Knowles has been found guilty either by MRP or tribunal 8 times. This will be the 9th. At what stage do we address that there is a real issue here.

May have been lucky that these specific things haven't happened in previous years, but this fixture has seen more than its share of unsavoury incidents. It does seem unnecessary, the ground is big enough to make necessary arrangements. Of course the bigger issue is nobjeads not behaving, but that will never go away unfortunately.