Disciplinary at it again.

[Harry Stottle]

5 minutes ago, Dave T said:

That seems a odd thing to put yourself through when it's irrelevant as it's legal right now mate.

Just for curiosity purposes, I regularly attend Community Games where it is an illegal action to 'touch' above the armpit and there is not much of it penalised, but these are in the main young refs and not under the microscope of TV.

[Dave T]

Just now, Harry Stottle said:

Just for curiosity purposes, I regularly attend Community Games where it is an illegal action to 'touch' above the armpit and there is not much of it penalised, but these are in the main young refs and not under the microscope of TV.

does the sport look any different, or is it just ignored?

[Dunbar]

2 minutes ago, Dave T said:

On your first line - I don't agree - the word unnecessary is important here - as per my first viewing, I think the tackler's body was in an unusual position, we see many third man in tackles that don't involve your knee being part of that tackle.

On your second line - I'm not sure why you think it is impossible to do that intentionally or recklessly? The fact that these tackles are not common suggests it is possible to not do it - I don't think because he did do it it is accidental.

Yes, you could certainly make an argument that he was reckless and applied pressure - that is clearly where the panel has gone with this one.

Would they have decided the same if Isa had got up and played the ball.  Who knows.

As for the next injury sustained by a player.  Let's have a chat then if pressure had been applied by the tackler to cause that injury and whether they should be banned.

The panel may have got this right by the letter of the law, but I don't like it.  I think it was an accident and we don't always have to find someone to blame for an accident. 

[dboy]

Put it this way - if he'd made that tackle to the ankle with his shoulder (to a stationary, vulnerable player), you'd have absolutely no complaints of it being called a cannonball tackle, and expect a big ban.

[Harry Stottle]

2 minutes ago, Dave T said:

does the sport look any different, or is it just ignored?

No it doesn't appear at all to be any different.

Maybe all the posters should get along to their community clubs (I am sure it will be appreciated) then they have something to compare when the brown smelly comments hit the fan next season as they surely will.

[Dunbar]

3 minutes ago, Harry Stottle said:

No it doesn't appear at all to be any different.

Maybe all the posters should get along to their community clubs (I am sure it will be appreciated) then they have something to compare when the brown smelly comments hit the fan next season as they surely will.

The Southern Conference starts this week, I will get to the first round of games and will be interested to see any changes.

Edited April 17 by Dunbar

[Harry Stottle]

6 minutes ago, dboy said:

Put it this way - if he'd made that tackle to the ankle with his shoulder (to a stationary, vulnerable player), you'd have absolutely no complaints of it being called a cannonball tackle, and expect a big ban.

It wasn't a cannonball tackle by definition though was it, it was an accident.

If the tackler had a tually done that purposefully with his knee, all I can say is it was a 'bloody good shot' considering he wasn't even looking in that direction.

[Dave T]

10 minutes ago, Dunbar said:

Yes, you could certainly make an argument that he was reckless and applied pressure - that is clearly where the panel has gone with this one.

Would they have decided the same if Isa had got up and played the ball.  Who knows.

As for the next injury sustained by a player.  Let's have a chat then if pressure had been applied by the tackler to cause that injury and whether they should be banned.

The panel may have got this right by the letter of the law, but I don't like it.  I think it was an accident and we don't always have to find someone to blame for an accident. 

Your third line is an interesting one, and I do get where you are coming from, but I think that is where the word 'unnecessary' does a lot of heavy lifting, and is clearly open to interpretation. 

On watching it, it does make me uncomfortable, I think it is a poor tackle - we see loads of these tackles where a players knees are not involved, which is the first thing I'd consider (so it wasn't an inevitable accident). On the disciplinary, we do see plenty of injuries that don't lead to a ban, and we see plenty of third man in tackles that don't lead to a ban, so I'm not too uncomfortable with it tbh.

[Dunbar]

4 minutes ago, Dave T said:

Your third line is an interesting one, and I do get where you are coming from, but I think that is where the word 'unnecessary' does a lot of heavy lifting, and is clearly open to interpretation. 

On watching it, it does make me uncomfortable, I think it is a poor tackle - we see loads of these tackles where a players knees are not involved, which is the first thing I'd consider (so it wasn't an inevitable accident). On the disciplinary, we do see plenty of injuries that don't lead to a ban, and we see plenty of third man in tackles that don't lead to a ban, so I'm not too uncomfortable with it tbh.

I do see that.

The body shape into the tackle is the important part here.  Did his body shape and angle cause unnecessary contact and was it reckless.

I am going to take a look at the live round of matches this week to see if this body shape and angle is very uncommon.

For me, the equation is simple.

Do I think it was a deliberate attempt to target the ankle and cause pressure? No

So, was it reckless.  This depends on whether the technique used was reckless as a knee hitting an ankle cannot on its own be described as reckless.

If other tackles have the same body shape and angle, and they go unpenalised and unrecognised then that adds to the discussion.  But I don't know that yet.

[dboy]

18 minutes ago, Harry Stottle said:

It wasn't a cannonball tackle by definition though was it, it was an accident.

If the tackler had a tually done that purposefully with his knee, all I can say is it was a 'bloody good shot' considering he wasn't even looking in that direction.

Stop fixating on "purposefully" - it's irrelevant.

That tackle "technique" was woeful and clearly dangerous.

Accidental or not, the tackler attached the ankle joint of a vulnerable player - a foul - and has been penalised.

The severity of that ban is another argument, but the nature of the injury is undoubtedly affecting that.

[LeeF]

2 hours ago, Dunbar said:

I am fully on board with the duty of care.  But equally, I think we also need to accept that in a collision sport accidents are bound to happen and I cannot think that a player hitting a hip/thigh with a shoulder will simultaneously contact an ankle with his knee in anything other than an accident that occurs once in a thousand tackles (or maybe more).

We cannot legislate to eliminate accidents and I personally believe that it is unfair to do this here and the ban is because a player suffered an unfortunate injury.

I agree that accidents can and do happen and that you can’t legislate to eliminate accidents but in this case the duty of care is key because of how the Cas player attempts to execute the tackle.

As I posted earlier hopefully the full disciplinary minutes will clarify. They are usually quite decent odd typo aside

[Alffi 7]

58 minutes ago, Dave T said:

does the sport look any different, or is it just ignored?

Only a few games in but it seems to depend on the referee. As Harry mentions sometimes it looks no different to last season, however one referee can be much hotter on it than others. Some focus on high tackles, some focus on offsides, some focus on play the balls.

 

We haven’t had an ‘adult’ ref yet, so that could be interesting and a truer reflection of what to expect in future.

[Dunbar]

21 minutes ago, LeeF said:

I agree that accidents can and do happen and that you can’t legislate to eliminate accidents but in this case the duty of care is key because of how the Cas player attempts to execute the tackle.

As I posted earlier hopefully the full disciplinary minutes will clarify. They are usually quite decent odd typo aside

Yes, I will read the minutes and that may shed some light on their thinking.

But your first line does worry me.  The tackler got the tackle execution wrong and injured a player... but didn't explicitily break any of the laws of the game making that tackle other than "uses any part of their body forcefully to twist, bend or otherwise apply pressure to the limb or limbs of an opposing player in a way that involves an unacceptable risk of injury to that player." 

It wasn't a cannonball and there was no twisting action as you cannot twist a players ankle with your knee - so it was a tackle that applied force to a part of the players body and caused an injury.  Which tackle that causes an injury doesn't apply force from a part of a tacklers body to cause an injury?

I go back to first principles here.  Put the injury to one side - what law was broken when this tackle was made?

[Dunbar]

50 minutes ago, dboy said:

Stop fixating on "purposefully" - it's irrelevant.

That tackle "technique" was woeful and clearly dangerous.

Accidental or not, the tackler attached the ankle joint of a vulnerable player - a foul - and has been penalised.

The severity of that ban is another argument, but the nature of the injury is undoubtedly affecting that.

You cannot tell someone to stop fixating on purposefully and then use the phrase 'attacked the ankle joint'.

Attacked is a very different meaning to recklessly or carelessly making contact - and does imply intent.

Is it your opinion that he deliberately attacked the ankle while making that tackle?

[dkw]

1 hour ago, dboy said:

Put it this way - if he'd made that tackle to the ankle with his shoulder (to a stationary, vulnerable player), you'd have absolutely no complaints of it being called a cannonball tackle, and expect a big ban.

So if he had done something completely different no one would have complained, what a bizarre post.

[dboy]

2 minutes ago, Dunbar said:

You cannot tell someone to stop fixating on purposefully and then use the phrase 'attacked the ankle joint'.

Attacked is a very different meaning to recklessly or carelessly making contact - and does imply intent.

Is it your opinion that he deliberately attacked the ankle while making that tackle?

I can use the word "attack", because that's the wording of the RFLs Disciplinary Rule Book.

The "intention" that you are fixated on does NOT mitigate whether a tackle was a foul or not.

The intention of the tackler CAN be used as a mitigation of the severity of the penalty.

It's a foul regardless of Namo's intent.

You won't accept the facts, so we'll have to just disagree.

[dboy]

2 minutes ago, dkw said:

So if he had done something completely different no one would have complained, what a bizarre post.

That's not what I said.

If he had contacted the ankle with his shoulder, rather than his knee (so not "completely different" as you put it), no-one would think anything of the ban.

[dkw]

Just now, dboy said:

That's not what I said.

If he had contacted the ankle with his shoulder, rather than his knee (so not "completely different" as you put it), no-one would think anything of the ban.

Of course its completely different, the only way(s) he contacts the ankle is likely to be deliberate, or really really badly mistimed. This one is a complete accident, or at worst a bit reckless. 

[dboy]

2 minutes ago, dkw said:

Of course its completely different, the only way(s) he contacts the ankle is likely to be deliberate, or really really badly mistimed. This one is a complete accident, or at worst a bit reckless. 

Neither of which affects whether it is a foul tackle or not!!!"

That only affects the grading of the charge and the severity of the ban.

Why is this so hard for some people??!!

[Dunbar]

8 minutes ago, dboy said:

I can use the word "attack", because that's the wording of the RFLs Disciplinary Rule Book.

Can you quote and link that wording here please as I would like to see it.

[Dunbar]

What is interesting in this case is that Namo has been charged under dangerous contact law and the charge states:

Dangerous Contact - Defender uses any part of their body forcefully to twist, bend or otherwise apply pressure to the limb or limbs of an opposing player in a way that involves an unacceptable risk of injury to that player.

But the preceding charge type to this one is:

Dangerous contact: A defending player, in effecting a tackle, makes dangerous contact (either direct or indirect), or uses a technique which is likely to make dangerous contact (either direct or indirect), with the supporting leg or legs of an attacking player who is being held in the tackle by a defender(s), and who is deemed to be in a vulnerable position, in a way that involves an unacceptable risk of injury to that player

The latter of these two charges is the cannonball tackle.  But because shoulder contact was above the thigh the cannonball law doesn't apply.  But I would argue that the part "in effecting a tackle, makes dangerous contact (either direct or indirect), or uses a technique which is likely to make dangerous contact (either direct or indirect), with the supporting leg or legs of an attacking player" is probably the part that does apply here.  This is much closer to what happened than the twisting, bending or application of pressure as that is almost impossible to do with a knee while effecting a tackle with your shoulder.

[Dunbar]

23 minutes ago, dboy said:

Neither of which affects whether it is a foul tackle or not!!!"

That only affects the grading of the charge and the severity of the ban.

Why is this so hard for some people??!!

It does matter because in the RFL disciplinary compliance document, the underlying principles state:

- Rugby League is a hard, fast, contact sport played at professional level by athletic players.

- In a sport with high speed collisions there will always be injuries and players take part with this knowledge.

- The disciplinary system is not intended to sanitise the sport, however, there is no place in the game for players who jeopardise the safety of others by intentional, dangerous or malicious acts.

- The disciplinary system must support and protect Match Officials.

They are explicitly stating that a sport like Rugby League will always have unfortunate injuries and the panel are tasked with deciding if an incident that led to an injury was a foul and whether it was intentional, dangerous or malicious.

You cannot take intentional out of the equation when one of the underlying principles of the panel is to decide (in part) if an action was intentional.  The opposite of intentional is accidental.

I think from the three here - intentional, dangerous or malicious - dangerous is the only category that matters and if the panel come down on the side that it was dangerous (as they seem to have done) then I am happy to accept that decision but I remain convinced it was accidental.

[dboy]

If you want to selectively pick the words to support your incorrect assertions, that's fine, but pointless.

You've quoted from the document introduction.

The rest of the document goes on to explain what the offences are, what the grade charge boundaries are, what mitigations there may be and what the sanctions may be.

It's an absolute fact that Namo committed a foul, contrary to the Laws of the Game.

[Dunbar]

x

Edited April 17 by Dunbar

[Dunbar]

9 minutes ago, dboy said:

If you want to selectively pick the words to support your incorrect assertions, that's fine, but pointless.

You've quoted from the document introduction.

The rest of the document goes on to explain what the offences are, what the grade charge boundaries are, what mitigations there may be and what the sanctions may be.

It's an absolute fact that Namo committed a foul, contrary to the Laws of the Game.

 Out of interest.  Why is it ok for you to selectively quote the disciplinary guidelines and not me?

 

15 hours ago, dboy said:

We can look forward to the adjudication to clear it all up...

6.4. Adjudications The Tribunal’s adjudications will:

- Be published in full;

- Include all aggravating and/or mitigating factors taken into consideration;

- Give clear and full reasons for the decision;

- Summarise the cases of the Compliance Manager and Player respectively;

- Confirm the sanction (if any) handed down including all aggravating and/or mitigating factors taken into consideration;

- Explain any deviation from the On Field Sentencing Guidelines;

- Give clear and full reasons for the decision.

 

16 hours ago, dboy said:

6.3.1.4. Injury caused

- If the Misconduct has caused injury to an opponent, this may result in a higher penalty than if no injury had occurred.

- The Operational Rules Tribunal may consider the length of time an injured opponent is likely to be out of the game when passing sentence.