Perhaps, any incident that results in a stoppage that the refs don't initially see should just be put on report and dealt with after the game?

Clearly Burgess knows nothing about RL…..

Well, he doesn't do most of the coaching at Warrington, apparently

I personally think any instance where a player stops the game because of an injury should result in a substitution, HIA or a green card regardless of whether the game is stopped by the referee or a club doctor. Anyone stopping the game for a head injury should result in an automatic HIA assessment. If contact to the head is bad enough for it to stop the game then it requires a HIA.

I'm sure I saw in a game this weekend (I believe it was Warrington), the Doctor or physio saying a player was fine to play on following a head injury, the ref stated that it would then be a green card, so the Doctor or physio changed his mind and advised the player would go off for a HIA.

I would also scrap the video ref reviewing foul play. If a player knows they won't get a player sent off following the incident, they won't stay down.

They won't implement it because they're petty and won't want it looking like a teams' coach has told them what to do. But the game is dying because of constant interference and this pantomime act of staying down while we wait for the video ref to chime in. There has to be middle ground.

I agree that something needs to change with players staying down in the hope of getting a penalty or even a player sent off or sin binned. There are times when the player is genuinely injured but other times when it ilooks like blatant cheating. The problem with a player going off automatically for a HIA after every possible head knock is that then the clubs will start abusing the system and using it as a free 10 minute interchange.
The idea of no penalty or sending off at the time and let the match review look at it, maybe the best way to go.

Whilst i can understand the thinking, that does not benefit the team that is playing and has suffered the consequences of an action.

It will benefit the team playing the following week. If the VT can see genuine foul play that merits a yellow /red then they should act. We don't need more power in the hands f the match review panel, they have already shown that they make inconsistent (often called out as biased on this forum) decisions and are not it for purpose.

I cant think of any other sport that micro analyses a whole game after the fact looking to hand out fines or bans. If an incident is put on report , carded or penalised during the game then deal with it through the disciplinary channels. Going through VT's looking for incidents is just trying to shoot ourselves in the foot and really isnt needed.

It's not a perfect solution and i agree that the downside is that the team that are playing don't see any benefit. Personally I would prefer that to the play acting we are seeing atm.

The model used in the NRL with respect to head knocks seems to work OK, at least in terms of play acting. Its certainly not been abused to get free interchanges as far as I can tell. Most players don't want to go off the field, but if a head knock is seen, the decision isn't theirs. Its not a VR decision but a doctor who reviews impacts. We've seen players taken off some time after the initial event on the advice of the medics.

Where the NRL is seeing some play acting is in 'crusher' tackles. Players are definitely staying down to get those reviewed.

I'd say the solution to the latter is that if the referee didn't see it, play on. No review of foul play itself to be done during the game. If a player stays down they know the main effect will be to give the defence a rest. Stop the VR review and there is zero incentive to stay down.

The difference seems to be that for head knocks the tackled player has to go off, but for crushers they are looking to get a penalty or more.

I think the recent type of play acting is a natural progression from players getting away with far too much in relation to challenging referees. The game has gone soft whether we like to admit it or not, and that includes the refs failing to clamp down on players getting in their face and challenging every other decision. St Helens have been the main culprits, groups of players prancing around the referee and the likes of Lomax, Welsby, Walmsley and Makinson gesticulating and bawling at refs every single game. We see the every game occurrence of players doing the imaginary square in the air when trying to get the ref to go to the screen for anything at all that could rule out a potential try. That in my book should be an immediate 10 mins, similar to a footballer waving a pretend card at the ref getting a yellow. It would seem the only player that that got any attention from refs was Harry Newman. It would appear the Lancashire Mafia (the refs) had been having a little chat together and singled him out whilst letting all the other gob####es carry on as normal. Johnny Lomax was even allowed to give verbal accounts of incidents that didn’t actually occur to refs in order to invoke sanctions. What we are seeing now is the game deteriorating further and further under an absolutely useless governing body that is making the game a bigger laughing stock than football. We used to laugh at football and now we have 20 stone giants collapsing under the finger of a small scrum half as he tries to play the ball.

lads can you encourage bentley or newman to take a dive early if not youre gonna have miski, dupree or marshall take the dive for the leg up

wigan arent gonna play fair

aw didums, somebody still crying about last week

you had 2 players quite rightly sin binned, and all your coach and some fans have done is bleat about it. Wigan have been most penalised & most bans this season, so you cant complain about bias towards Wigan

perhaps try looking a bit closer to home and your angel no 7 who has a history of diving and putting his fingers into other players mouth's, and then crying he bit me. Where was your coach crying then, he wasnt calling Lewis out for being a cheat, so very double standards

that 'cheating' number 7 who got hit 4 seconds late off a kick by tom forber and didnt stay down in which would of been a certain yellow with abit of theater

really are deluded