RFL says no further action against Nu Brown…

[Barry Badrinath]

15 hours ago, Wellsy4HullFC said:

The protocol basically forgot to mention exceptions. The RFL are taking the blame off the ref, which is fine. In all of my reactions to the red card, I was never angry at the ref, I was angry at the RFL for this poorly executed new directive (and before anyone says "it wasn't poorly executed", it's easy to say when your side hasn't been affected and screwed of a fair shot at winning when they were arguably on top, not to mention the knock on effects).

I hope this response from the RFL gives referees the confidence to include a little more common sense in their judgements.

its a weird one, you would have hope last year when it was trialed at whatever level, or the pre season games, there would have been a big enough sample size to cover all eventual possibilities,

 

Personally i would have gone through everything that resulted in a head contact suspension last year, and hopefully got at least half a dozen examples of what fit what criteria.  so you could avoid this sort of fallout, i think maybe had tom amone been red carded in round one, there might have been more focus on that incident, i know there was confusion about the suspension when that was handed down. and has since been downgraded

[Dave T]

16 hours ago, Wellsy4HullFC said:

The protocol basically forgot to mention exceptions. The RFL are taking the blame off the ref, which is fine. In all of my reactions to the red card, I was never angry at the ref, I was angry at the RFL for this poorly executed new directive (and before anyone says "it wasn't poorly executed", it's easy to say when your side hasn't been affected and screwed of a fair shot at winning when they were arguably on top, not to mention the knock on effects).

I hope this response from the RFL gives referees the confidence to include a little more common sense in their judgements.

The protocol did have secondary contact as mitigation. But it's clear that things were being applied too rigid. 

Had they followed the guidance to the letter of tge law (according to those slides linked to here), we may have seen a yellow card (which would still be excessive), but the VR and ref decided no mitigation, that was their opinion, and that was the huge problem here, that they looked at that incident and saw a serious red card incident. 

I expect the RFL were pretty peeved with them. 

[The Blues Ox]

Has there been any discussion with lower league clubs regards the new new interpretations? A lot of talk in the statement of how they would meet with SL coaches as though this is only going to affect them.

Obviously next year is going to be an even bigger change and where as at community level there is a lot more reffing using common sense going on regarding the new lower tackle heights, you have to feel they are going to be over scrutinised when it comes to Super League which could lead to a bit of a mess but hopefully this has given the RFL some food for though on how to smoothly adapt.

It is good that common sense preveiled in the Brown sending off but I don't agree with a previous poster regarding Amone, although Ive not seen if his charge was removed or not but he clearly had time to get his head in a better position than he did.

[Harry Stottle]

On 27/02/2024 at 17:24, meast said:

Not dead, just gone!

Not gone yet, but it's going that way!

[meast]

1 hour ago, Harry Stottle said:

Not gone yet, but it's going that way!

The healthy attendance and viewing figures would suggest otherwise.

The only thing that is going is foul and thuggish play and the threat of more head injuries and more litigation, that's not a bad thing is it?  oh and the reluctance of some people to accept that time and society moves on, RL in 2024 is different to what RL was in 1984.

[Lowdesert]

20 hours ago, Dave T said:

The protocol did have secondary contact as mitigation. But it's clear that things were being applied too rigid. 

Had they followed the guidance to the letter of tge law (according to those slides linked to here), we may have seen a yellow card (which would still be excessive), but the VR and ref decided no mitigation, that was their opinion, and that was the huge problem here, that they looked at that incident and saw a serious red card incident. 

I expect the RFL were pretty peeved with them. 

The game really shouldn’t just be about the officials though.  It should be about players and fans.  This is not to say that we don’t value or need officials (or campaigns/rule changes to eradicate brain injuries) but it seems as if we are trying for instant, 100% compliance, which will be impossible.  
 

 

[Dave T]

3 minutes ago, Lowdesert said:

The game really shouldn’t just be about the officials though.  It should be about players and fans.  This is not to say that we don’t value or need officials (or campaigns/rule changes to eradicate brain injuries) but it seems as if we are trying for instant, 100% compliance, which will be impossible.  
 

 

I don't think we are. It was a bad decision. We've had them before, I'm afraid we'll have them again. 

[phiggins]

2 hours ago, The Blues Ox said:

Has there been any discussion with lower league clubs regards the new new interpretations? A lot of talk in the statement of how they would meet with SL coaches as though this is only going to affect them.

Obviously next year is going to be an even bigger change and where as at community level there is a lot more reffing using common sense going on regarding the new lower tackle heights, you have to feel they are going to be over scrutinised when it comes to Super League which could lead to a bit of a mess but hopefully this has given the RFL some food for though on how to smoothly adapt.

It is good that common sense preveiled in the Brown sending off but I don't agree with a previous poster regarding Amone, although Ive not seen if his charge was removed or not but he clearly had time to get his head in a better position than he did.

Amone's charge was downgraded from a C to a B, and ban reduced from 2 to 1 matches. The tackle was, this year, a legal technique to wrap the ball, unfortunately the ball carriers head dipped at the point of collision. The clash of heads was minimal (if any frankly), and play went on without any issue. A ban seems pretty harsh to me.

[Dave T]

Just now, phiggins said:

Amone's charge was downgraded from a C to a B, and ban reduced from 2 to 1 matches. The tackle was, this year, a legal technique to wrap the ball, unfortunately the ball carriers head dipped at the point of collision. The clash of heads was minimal (if any frankly), and play went on without any issue. A ban seems pretty harsh to me.

Isn't the issue that Amone's head was in the zone of where the ball carrier's head will be? Apologies if I'm thinking of the wrong one. 

The change that's gonna have to be made here is tacklers can't make these standing tall and upright and wrapping the bal carrier up. The shoulder and head will need to be moved. 

[Lowdesert]

1 minute ago, Dave T said:

I don't think we are. It was a bad decision. We've had them before, I'm afraid we'll have them again. 

Indeed we will.  
 

 

 

[LeeF]

5 hours ago, The Blues Ox said:

Has there been any discussion with lower league clubs regards the new new interpretations? A lot of talk in the statement of how they would meet with SL coaches as though this is only going to affect them.

Obviously next year is going to be an even bigger change and where as at community level there is a lot more reffing using common sense going on regarding the new lower tackle heights, you have to feel they are going to be over scrutinised when it comes to Super League which could lead to a bit of a mess but hopefully this has given the RFL some food for though on how to smoothly adapt.

It is good that common sense preveiled in the Brown sending off but I don't agree with a previous poster regarding Amone, although Ive not seen if his charge was removed or not but he clearly had time to get his head in a better position than he did.

Yes there was pre season. Robert Hicks mentioned it on a podcast with Tanya Arnold where he did state that one Championship coach had been complaining but the same coach was the only one who hadn’t turned up to the meeeting!

[LeeF]

2 hours ago, Dave T said:

Isn't the issue that Amone's head was in the zone of where the ball carrier's head will be? Apologies if I'm thinking of the wrong one. 

The change that's gonna have to be made here is tacklers can't make these standing tall and upright and wrapping the bal carrier up. The shoulder and head will need to be moved. 

Yes that was the case with the Amone incident. It was textbook as per the descriptions issued pre season with no mitigation 

[The Blues Ox]

Yeah I feel one game for Amone is fair. It would have been disappointing if he had not recieved a ban as he certainly has time to execute that tackle better than he did even if there was no malice involved.

[phiggins]

22 hours ago, Dave T said:

Isn't the issue that Amone's head was in the zone of where the ball carrier's head will be? Apologies if I'm thinking of the wrong one. 

The change that's gonna have to be made here is tacklers can't make these standing tall and upright and wrapping the bal carrier up. The shoulder and head will need to be moved. 

I'd feel more comfortable if we had brought in the armpit height rule now, rather than have the current guidance which seems to be basically to be telling defenders to get out of the attacker's way. Even the tribunal conceded that the contact was the ball carrier onto Amone ("The result of this was the attackers head made contact with the jaw of Tom Amone, which in itself demonstrates that Tom Amone was in the wrong position.")