Sat 12th Oct: SL Grand Final: Wigan Warriors v Hull KR KO 18:00 (Sky)

[StandOffHalf]

8 hours ago, Damien said:

Amazing:

 

Lovely comparison piece.

[StandOffHalf]

Two points that I saw last night on social media around the Nsemba incident:

1. Nsemba was out cold or suspected to be out cold, which is Category 1 and out of the rest of the game.

2. Burgess went in and brought a closed fist down on the side of his face, while he was out on the ground. Could/should this have been classed as high contact/a punch, and a send-off offence?

I think Nsemba probably should have been ruled out after his injury. I don't know on the Burgess contact. It doesn't look great looking at it again, but he probably just intended to tie-up the Wigan player and couldn't re-adjust. Sky apparently cut the Burgess bit out, when re-showing the incident? On another day it could have been a send-off, I suppose...

 

 

Edited October 13 by StandOffHalf

[phiggins]

2 minutes ago, StandOffHalf said:

Two points that I saw last night on social media around the Nsemba incident:

1. Nsemba was out cold or suspected to be out cold, which is Category 1 and out of the rest of the game.

2. Burgess went in and brought a closed fist down on the side of his face, while he was out on the ground. Could/should this have been classed as high contact/a punch, and a send-off offence?

I think Nsemba probably should have been ruled out after his injury. I don't know on the Burgess contact. It doesn't look great looking at it again, but he probably just intended to tie-up the Wigan player and couldn't re-adjust. Sky apparently cut the Burgess bit out, when re-showing the incident? On another day it could have been a send-off, I suppose...

 

 

But on point 1, we don’t know if he was out cold or not. So any suggestion that he was by anyone on social media is pure guesswork. Though, if I had to guess, I’d say he did a damn fine job of not losing the ball if he was out cold.

Anyone that thinks that Wigan would flout HIA rules because they think he’s vital to their hopes of winning the game are venturing into tin foil hat territory. 

[StandOffHalf]

9 minutes ago, phiggins said:

But on point 1, we don’t know if he was out cold or not. So any suggestion that he was by anyone on social media is pure guesswork. Though, if I had to guess, I’d say he did a damn fine job of not losing the ball if he was out cold.

Anyone that thinks that Wigan would flout HIA rules because they think he’s vital to their hopes of winning the game are venturing into tin foil hat territory. 

I am of course glad if it wasn't as serious as first feared, but I was astonished when he came back on.

[EagleEyePie]

I can only assume that the assessment that took place on the field informs the 'suspected loss of consciousness' aspect of the guidelines. He took a heavy fall which would probably have knocked the wind out of him and there was some impact on the neck, so without a loss of consciousness you still wouldn't expect a player to jump back up onto their feet. And as soon as the medical team reach him you can't read anything into how long he's down, the length of treatment or how much he moves as an assessment is taking place and he'll have been told to keep still until asked to perform certain movements.

I don't think there's much in what Burgess did. Some were saying it was a closed fist punch but if you pause it at the right time you can clearly see his open palm bent backwards. it's a push to the face on the ground. A bit grubby at worst but not ban worthy. I actually think Hiku is more likely to have an issue for moving Nsemba while he's on the ground. I'm sure I remember a player getting suspended for a very slight pull on a players shirt while they were down hurt. 

[phiggins]

8 minutes ago, StandOffHalf said:

I am of course glad if it wasn't as serious as first feared, but I was astonished when he came back on.

I was surprised, but I trust the judgement of the qualified medics who were there more than I do people commenting on Twitter / X. 

[Exiled Wiganer]

39 minutes ago, StandOffHalf said:

I am of course glad if it wasn't as serious as first feared, but I was astonished when he came back on.

Why didn’t you write that you have no idea what actually happened, and were astonished he came back on (based on err, what exactly?)

[Damien]

59 minutes ago, StandOffHalf said:

Two points that I saw last night on social media around the Nsemba incident:

1. Nsemba was out cold or suspected to be out cold, which is Category 1 and out of the rest of the game.

2. Burgess went in and brought a closed fist down on the side of his face, while he was out on the ground. Could/should this have been classed as high contact/a punch, and a send-off offence?

I think Nsemba probably should have been ruled out after his injury. I don't know on the Burgess contact. It doesn't look great looking at it again, but he probably just intended to tie-up the Wigan player and couldn't re-adjust. Sky apparently cut the Burgess bit out, when re-showing the incident? On another day it could have been a send-off, I suppose...

 

 

At the time I couldn't believe more wasn't made of what Burgess did.

[StandOffHalf]

12 minutes ago, Exiled Wiganer said:

Why didn’t you write that you have no idea what actually happened, and were astonished he came back on (based on err, what exactly?)

Him being seemingly knocked out.

[Ullman]

1 hour ago, Damien said:

At the time I couldn't believe more wasn't made of what Burgess did.

Happened so quickly I'm not surprised it wasn't spotted by any of the on field officials but it was clear what he did on the replay. Hopefully it will be picked up on review.

[Dave T]

2 hours ago, phiggins said:

I was surprised, but I trust the judgement of the qualified medics who were there more than I do people commenting on Twitter / X. 

Indeed. We really do need to let professionals do their job and not make medical decisions based on what we see on telly because we were brought up on Casualty.

[Dave T]

2 hours ago, Damien said:

At the time I couldn't believe more wasn't made of what Burgess did.

First time I've seen that, and I'd like to see it more slowly, but it looks like thuggery tbh.

[WN83]

10 hours ago, Dave T said:

First time I've seen that, and I'd like to see it more slowly, but it looks like thuggery tbh.

He had a mard lip on because of the man handling Nsemba has given him in defence this past few weeks, so he resorted to that. I think his ego struggles to deal with a kid doing that to him but Nsemba is a physical freak. 

[HKRBob]

15 hours ago, EagleEyePie said:

I don't think there's much in what Burgess did. Some were saying it was a closed fist punch but if you pause it at the right time you can clearly see his open palm bent backwards. it's a push to the face on the ground. A bit grubby at worst but not ban worthy. I actually think Hiku is more likely to have an issue for moving Nsemba while he's on the ground. I'm sure I remember a player getting suspended for a very slight pull on a players shirt while they were down hurt. 

I've watched it a couple of times and based on the comments I was expecting to see a punch, but i thought it looked like you have described. 

Just glad Nsemba came back on and was able to play on after the HIA.

[redjonn]

13 hours ago, Ullman said:

Happened so quickly I'm not surprised it wasn't spotted by any of the on field officials but it was clear what he did on the replay. Hopefully it will be picked up on review.

happened so quickly that both the missus and myself mentioned it immediately and could not understand that when they replayed it after he had attention they stopped at the point of the first tackle before he went in whilst on the floor... each time on the replay they stopped showing it all the way through.

I could not understand guess the TV decided not to show all...

[Exiled Wiganer]

39 minutes ago, redjonn said:

happened so quickly that both the missus and myself mentioned it immediately and could not understand that when they replayed it after he had attention they stopped at the point of the first tackle before he went in whilst on the floor... each time on the replay they stopped showing it all the way through.

I could not understand guess the TV decided not to show all...

He sauntered in, took a look and had a go at his head on the ground, when he was both trapped and he could have worked out he was injured. The tackle had nothing to do with Burgess, and he clearly couldn’t care less what state Nsemba was in. Had it been a notorious player, or a maligned club the calls for his blood would have been through the roof. Whereas there are people who say that incident and choose to bleat that Nsemba shouldn’t have returned to the field. 

That said, the disciplinary will deal with it objectively, and whatever they decide is likely to be fair. They are the experts. 

[Worzel]

Peta Hiku has just been given a grade E charge for moving Nsemba’s arm away from his face to check if the lad was OK.

Would rule him out of the test series if found guilty. Seems a pretty appalling way to address the issue to be honest. 

[Click]

51 minutes ago, Worzel said:

Peta Hiku has just been given a grade E charge for moving Nsemba’s arm away from his face to check if the lad was OK.

Would rule him out of the test series if found guilty. Seems a pretty appalling way to address the issue to be honest. 

Just had to re-watch to check - Does seem incredibly harsh to give him a grade E charge for that. 

And to not give anything to Burgess who hits him in the head when he is on the ground makes it even more of a joke.

The charge is "Grade E Unnecessary Contact with a Player who is or maybe injured" I'm sure Hiku can probably claim that he didn't know that the player was or could be injured at that time, until he did move his arm.

It isn't like other incidents over the last few years when we've had players pulling a player up from the ground that they believe is milking a decision.

[Worzel]

9 minutes ago, Click said:

Just had to re-watch to check - Does seem incredibly harsh to give him a grade E charge for that. 

And to not give anything to Burgess who hits him in the head when he is on the ground makes it even more of a joke.

The charge is "Grade E Unnecessary Contact with a Player who is or maybe injured" I'm sure Hiku can probably claim that he didn't know that the player was or could be injured at that time, until he did move his arm.

It isn't like other incidents over the last few years when we've had players pulling a player up from the ground that they believe is milking a decision.

Yeah I went and rewatched it too. My read on it is that Hiku was genuinely checking if he was OK.

Even if you make the argument that he should know better than move the arm of a player he thinks is injured, surely intent counts and you'd write that up as a mistake to be learned from rather than an act to be punished. This is in no way the same thing as stuff like SKD last season, who clearly thought an opponent was milking it and tried to pull them up. That's irresponsible and dangerous. This incident wasn't that.

I agree with you on Burgess too, that was unnecessary and I thought we'd dodged a bullet at the time. Was expecting him to get binned, and us maybe lose the game in the following 10 mins. 

 

[Ullman]

1 hour ago, Worzel said:

Peta Hiku has just been given a grade E charge for moving Nsemba’s arm away from his face to check if the lad was OK.

Would rule him out of the test series if found guilty. Seems a pretty appalling way to address the issue to be honest. 

They've got the wrong man there. Seems incredibly harsh to me. You could see Hiku was genuinely concerned for Nsemba by his reaction.

[redjonn]

33 minutes ago, Worzel said:

Yeah I went and rewatched it too. My read on it is that Hiku was genuinely checking if he was OK.

Even if you make the argument that he should know better than move the arm of a player he thinks is injured, surely intent counts and you'd write that up as a mistake to be learned from rather than an act to be punished. This is in no way the same thing as stuff like SKD last season, who clearly thought an opponent was milking it and tried to pull them up. That's irresponsible and dangerous. This incident wasn't that.

I agree with you on Burgess too, that was unnecessary and I thought we'd dodged a bullet at the time. Was expecting him to get binned, and us maybe lose the game in the following 10 mins. 

 

just imagine if the player on the ground needed resuscitation and in not moving the arm to check the person was in a safe situation something worse happened to the injured player.

Yep I know the rules but I would hope that context and unusual circumstance is taken into account and why someone may need to check if the bloke was breathing... a few seconds awaiting for the doc may be too late.

Can't believe Burgess hasn't been called to disciplinary...

Edited October 14 by redjonn

[JohnM]

Matt Peet and Liam Farrell live on BBC Radio 5 now. Long in depth piece, long interview.  You can catch it live, now or listen on catch-up on  BBC Sounds . 

[Exiled Wiganer]

Thompson has been banned for the tackle which lead to HKR’s 2 points. I assume that is a standard tariff, though it would be a shame for him and England if he has to sit out a test match as a result. Was surprised that Burgess’ was nothing to see here, but the committee know what they’re doing. 

[StandOffHalf]

5 hours ago, redjonn said:

happened so quickly that both the missus and myself mentioned it immediately and could not understand that when they replayed it after he had attention they stopped at the point of the first tackle before he went in whilst on the floor... each time on the replay they stopped showing it all the way through.

I could not understand guess the TV decided not to show all...

Hiku wasn't dragging him up, as we have seen in the past.

Absolutely nothing ban-worthy in his moving of Nsemba's arm to check on him IMO.

How someone can look at that and let Burgess off and charge Hiku makes me shake my head.

[StandOffHalf]

Bans from club games should affect club games IMO.

It seems completely off that Hiku and Thompson could miss Test matches for these incidents.