More importantly awaiting Tautai's long ban for being a sh|thouse.

Tautai Grade B dangerous contact
Charnley Grade C contact with match official

I reckon they've got those about right, on reflection.

Both will be rightfully banned for being disgraces in different ways.

It was a poor tackle and while it could have been done at a worse angle we should be doing everything we can to eliminate it as with the shoulder charge which seem to be much more penalised.


I was amazed that the Ref didn't blow for dissent or say anything to charnley at the time, It was a terrible example of dealing with disappointment and deserves as long a ban as is available. it was petulant and aggressive.

Is that the grading from the Review Panel?
We have seen this before quite recently with SOL who by all acounts should have received a ban greater than 1 game and ended up having the grading reduced on the day.

Grade B is the lowest grading Tautai could receive. A 1 or 2 match ban is nowhere near enough in my opinion. Earlier in the season bans of 4 games were being given out, which is nearer to what it should be. Although personally I'd go further and be looking at 6-8 matches for such cowardly, sh|thouse, weak tackling. Along with bans/sanctions for both clubs and coaches in the case of repeat offenders.

Agreed, Mac pointed out in his press conference that if he breaks Cuthbertsons leg he is banned 8-10 games (I believe that is what Chase got for a similar incident)
Total inconsistency again from the review pannel, blatant cannon ball tackles should all be treated the same

Also shows how ridiculous the governing of RL has gotten, we ban shoulder charges because of player welfare on the off chance someone gets hit in the head (instead of just penalising heavily whenever contact with the head is made), touching the ref is a 3 game ban, yet a potential season ending tackle will be a one game ban
IMO Charnly should get a one game ban and a slap on the wrist and Tautai should be out for at least 4 games

Tautai should have been sent off but the weak-kneed Hicks bottled it as usual & another team benefits from his absence.
As happened last week with O'Loughlin.

I'd rather have a half-back who can do both. Lilley for me does neither particularly, hardly ever challenges the line and without he can find some pace from somewhere he's not going to be top half SL quality.

Time will tell.

O'Loughlin was sent off around 3 mins before half time.
Wakefield had the opportunity to take advantage but threw it away, litterally.

True about the shoulder charge, you can also add they've clamped down on players fighting and throwing punches much more in recent years so it's baffling what's taking them so long to clamp down on those cannonball tackles.

I know the refs need to be respected and we can't have players touching them but I think that Charnley probably getting a longer ban than Tautai is completely wrong as the latter offence is the one more troubling the game and much more likely to be repeated.

Hicks is very fortunate that Leeds players kept their heads after the Tautai 'tackle' as on another night or against another team it could've seen over the next few minutes tempers boil over and the match descend into a scrap as he didn't really do anything at all to diffuse the situation and was more interested in telling Ablett to shut up about the incident.

Spot on. I know it might have cost us the game and so I'm glad we didn't react too much to it but I'm also just a smidge aggrieved that we didn't tvvat the b&stard. In short, I miss Barrie a little.

You're right on Charnley, we have to protect referees, so a one game ban would be sufficient for me. However I'd far rather that Hicks had dealt with it at the time with a sin binning.

Except it wasn't a cannonball tackle. People who throw terms like that around really need to understand what a cannonball tackle is.

What Chase did, was a cannonball. He went in shoulder first on the knee of a stationary, upright opponent with no other intention than to do him damage.

What Tautai did wasn't a cannonball. He used a proper tackling technique to attempt to pin the ankles together and bring the man to ground. Even Cuthbertson said as much at the touch screen after the game. Yes he was maybe fractionally lower than you'd want, but McDermott went way over the top in his reaction - presumably without having the chance to look at it again on video before going into his press conference. Having had the chance to look at the video, the MRP have got it spot on in my opinion. The point of contact is the issue, rather than the technique used.

Comparing it to the tackle by Chase on Ferres is like comparing night and day.

Noticeable those thinking Tautai should be looking at a long ban are extraordinarily quiet in Carl Ablett using the same technique at least twice later on in the game. Benefits of playing in front of a home crowd who aren't going to scream at every borderline challenge on one of their players I suppose.

Again Hicks is getting grief for talking to Ablett. It wasn't his reaction to that particular incident on its own, it was Ablett giving a running commentary on every decision Hicks was making that got him pulled out and spoken to. Clear from the Sky audio.

Granted Ablett will have been moaning all game as usual, but to pull him out after that particular incident and give him a telling off and pretty much nothing said to Tautai or Wigan.....poor reffing and lucky they weren't a few more 'combustible' players shall we say on the pitch as it could've descended into an ugly clash in the following minutes.

If you think all that's wrong with that type of tackle was the execution/point of contact then so be it but I doubt you'll find many agreeing with you.

What pulling Ablett out did do was give everybody sixty seconds to calm down after the incident, although it's noticeable there wasn't that much of a reaction from the players over and above a bit of shoving. Clearly they didn't see it as being that bad, otherwise I'm sure the reaction would have been a lot worse.

And I'll take Cuthbertson's opinion on it thanks. I'd imagine he knows a bit more about these things and didn't appear unduly upset.

Unless of course you think it was as bad as Chase's. You don't seriously think that though, do you?