You were doing ok until this.... Are you really suggesting Kirke can adequately take the place of Bailey ?

As others have suggested the poor positional sense of the (experienced) referee should not result in punishment of the players IMO.

Having finally seen the incident this morning, if Bailey had left Silverwood alone then the case for serious case of obstruction resides there

Silverwood deffo obstructed there the Useless Cleckhuddersfax Personage

Yes I think he certainly did. Keith has a way with words even when, as in this case, most were harvested from this thread full of mostly irrational one-eyed comments.

Had this thread appeared on the Wigan board the same people would have been ripping the pea out of their fans.

There can be no excuse for a player making deliberate physical contact with a match official so I'm not sure why some posters are trying to find one and/or making comparisons to other incidents involving player on player indescretions or the punishments that followed them.

In general terms I hope players reign themselves in a little after this wake up message as their attitude towards officials has markedly declined over recent seasons, IMO.

I still think the Bailey incident was more of a one off involving one of those one off characters in the game but hopefully it will reinforce a respect for the officials and the job they do, I think, to the best of their unbiased abilities.

I think it's the length of ban which for me seems disproportionate. I can see the reasoning. Not really to protect silverwood from a gentle shove but to send a message out to the lower leagues and ametur game where refs ( in football anyway from experience) are subject to a heck of a lot worse.

Yep.