You get Child again we get Thaler Agree with you on the high shots, Check out ben flowers red v warrington last yesr (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcoUErQ_J60) It was deserved but no where near as bad as westwoods. As mentioned before imo the best way to treat these fouls fairly is to brandish the cards correctly. If that requires the vid ref to have a word then i'm all with it.

You get Child again we get Thaler Agree with you on the high shots, Check out ben flowers red v warrington last yesr (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcoUErQ_J60) It was deserved but no where near as bad as westwoods. As mentioned before imo the best way to treat these fouls fairly is to brandish the cards correctly. If that requires the vid ref to have a word then i'm all with it.

Its amazing isn't it that earlier in the season the "in" thing was to throw the ball at a defender in or near the ruck and you got a penalty. The RFL soon sorted that but they seem to have an aversion to getting rid of deliberate foul play as demonstrated by Ferres and Westwood. They should instantly instruct (not advise) the refs to start waving red cards for these offences. Unless action is taken now someone is going to suffer a life-threatening injury. Gildart and Sutcliffe should not have been exposed to this kind of assault.

High shots like these were common in the game up until the late 1980s. Around 1989 the RFL issued an edict to referees instructing them that any contact with the head was a straight sending off. At disciplinary committees they really clamped down with an 8 match suspension being handed out very often indeed.

The effect was very positive. Thuggery decreased markedly. From that moment on if the second or third man in the tackle wrapped the ball up rather than took your head off.

Sometimes it takes a blanket approach to cut through all the confusion. Draw a line under previous interpretation. Any contact with the head and it's a red card from now on.

Whilst I agree with you Bullseye to an extent there is the grey area of how hard a player has been hit to the head.
If it is just a slap or mis timed i.e player side steps you and your hand catches his head.
Is that a straight red card when compared to what Westwood did.
The use of the VR should come in regardless.

We could send a team of 17 Robbie Burrow's out on the field & within about 20 minutes, hey presto we'd be playing against a 10 or 11 man team!

I think the contact with the head is less important than the lateness of it. Kickers can't protect themselves and whilst they can't be given free reign and there needs to be a contest the onus has to be on the tackler to get there in time.

I also think it's a conscious decision not to send players off because of the impact it has on the game as a contest. 10mins to 4 matches is an awful big discrepancy. Perhaps referees would be more willing to enforce substitutions instead?

Or RFL could eventually draw the conclusion that we all already know.

James Childs is an incompetent and should not be allowed a rugby pitch ever again

what we don't want to see is a silly knee jerk reaction from RFL and refs and somebody getting send of for something soft like a lazy arm. the westwood challenge was a straight red in almost any era of the game, and the ref bottled it. if he got sent off nobody would have any complaints and no debate.

Agree with this. A sending off and a 1 or 2 game ban would suffice.

I understand Smokey's point about refs being unwilling to red card players. Could we maybe introduce a 20 minute sin bin? Or a 10 min sin bin along with that player being subbed at the end of the 10 min sin bin. So he'd play no further part in the game but the team would only be down to 12 men for 10 mins?

I would rather a player staying on that should have been sent off than a player sent off then being found not guilty at the disciplinary.

As stated above Westwood's was a straight red in almost any era of the sport and a bad decision by the officials. If for an offence to be deemed worthy of instant dismissal it had first to tick several boxes then that 'challenge' did. Late, high, shoulder contact direct with the head - textbook example of what a dismissal should look like.

I agree. If you're not going to send off that then what will be worthy of a red card?