Quote Sgy Loiner="Sgy Loiner"Every offence Saints commit is 'a nothing incident'. '"
Quite. If you look at the volume of bans (I think we're level top now, but with fewer games because most of ours are 1-2) and the range of bans they are always at the bottom ends of the scale. I think the worst ban we got this season was 3 for Mata'utia grabbing the collar of a player clearly faking an injury, although I understand why those have to be given. For all the hype this week and the campaign by Sky to get as many banned as possible, Saints are not a dirty side. There are no dirty players in that team. Saints haven't put a bad tackle in this season, not one. If you look at the Tetavano hit on Hurrell as an example of a bad tackle, there's been nothing anywhere near that. It's a shame the hype around the final descended to where it did and all being about Knowles, but in isolation that is simply not worthy of a ban. But that is where the MRP being so trigger happy leads us to, everyone spends the games making notes on who they want to demand gets banned. Lets go back to banning the dangerous ones.
Quote Sgy Loiner="Sgy Loiner"Knowles is lucky he didn’t get picked up for two shoulder charges either. '"
I've watched it back three times now and I don't have a clue where any of those are. That shows how minor they were. Blake Austin also got away with two or three high shots and Martin's kick at Hurrell could have been looked at too, but we could be here all night with a contact sport like RL.
Quote Sgy Loiner="Sgy Loiner"The irony over on the social media sites is bordering on hilarious over the Martin tackle on Lomax. Many are the same names that applauded Welsby’s shot only last week, yet they want a four match ban for Martin’s 'near neck breaker'.
At no point were his legs above the horizontal position, and I’m almost certain Moore wasn’t going to blow up until Welsby and that cockney idiot ran in carrying on.'"
That one wasn't a ban, but you're always going to concede a penalty for that because of how spectacular the fall was. Live, everyone around us was saying red, a couple of Leeds fans saying it was definitely over now as he'd definitely get sent. Then they showed the replay and everyone forgot about it. His legs went almost vertical so it looks bad even though the contact with the ground was level and therefore legal. The only thing I'd question in that is control, I'm not sure Martin has any control over where he lands, but I'm happy with no ban.
It's interesting too that Myler got told off twice for faking impacts. The sport really needs to get a grip of that, it's becoming more and more like the Premier League by the week.
