Sunday 4 September 2011

How to get sent off

I have been watching the Wigan versus Warrington match this afternoon. The match is almost finished but Gareth Hock for Wigan has decided that there is still plenty to play for. So much so that Gareth thought it was worthwhile putting his fingers in the eyes of Ben Harrison the Warrington prop. Then Gareth followed it up with a push/punch with his left arm and an attempted upper cut with his right. For this misdemeanor he is placed on report.

I don't know if all of this was seen by the referee, but I had two thoughts on this incident. Wouldn't it be nice to think that a player's eyesight was more important than whether a boot went onto a white line in the process of scoring a try. So bring in the technology to allow the referee to know exactly what has gone on. Secondly, if the referee did know what went on, and what I saw was correct (I only saw the replay three times) then the punishment should relate to the incident. What do you have to do to end up in the sin bin? What do you have to do to get sent off?

The good news is that the initial comment was that incident was shocking, and after the match we were told that there is no place for this type of action in the game of rugby league. So maybe my interpretation was correct.

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