What I would say is that even without the benefit of time and replays, and without having to resort to sending a player from the field in a big game for something which wasn't initially seen or could be argued in McIlorum's case wasn't intentionally head high - both incidents in the round should have at least warranted a yellow card. Both clearly over the line (picking up an injured player: mugging Myler before the bum happened).

I'm not a fan of sending players off unless the play is clearly deliberate but one player has had his face smashed and another assaulted, no other way to put it and the refs have a duty of care.

It's not like either of these players, or the club actually, don't have form on this.

A Kendall reffed final between saints and Wigan - which I reckon it will be - could be a bit spicy!

He may not deserve it but in a way I hope he gets it

McIlorum in Sky’s team of the week. You couldn’t make it up.

Hes a damn sight better than either of our 9s.

6 match ban Mcllorum. Yet the none of the officials saw anything. Stinks

Not for the next 6 games he isn’t...

I understand what you mean, but he’s always been as much a liability as an asset. Too risky for me, you need players who play not watch from the stands.

He's Terry Newton without the talent, zero skill or pace to his game.

Oh for a Terry Newton at 9 for us now.

How right!!!. God bless him. X

Tomkins 8 games, mcilorum 6. A kind of justice but action by officials on the night may have ended in a different outcome. But no action against on field or video ref?. STINKS.

They've been banned and rightly so. Everyone knows thats the correct decision and the bans reflect that.

What isn't right is Kendall getting a semi final and possibly the grand final. That is completely wrong on every single level. What must every other ref think of that decision? They must have lost complete faith in the RFL (or whatever small bit of faith they had left)

I see Aaron Bower is sticking up for Kendall saying he is one of the best refs and deserves to ref again this season. Good old captain hindsight Bower. I remember him tweeting a right load of "ner ner ner Leeds won the challenge cup and all you leeds fans said Richard agar was crap nerr nerrrrrr don't you all look like a right set of idiots now nerrr nerrrr isn't luke gale great nerrr errr"

Anyway

And rightly so, as I said to begin 6-8 for the pair of them.

Kendall is awful. At the very least he saw an injured Dwyer being picked up by the scruff of the neck but did nothing. Worse ref in the game for me and not just on this.

Absolutely. To get rewarded with a semi final after making such significant mistakes Is truly shocking and makes a mockery of this sport. It really is tin pot at times. Absolutely shambolic

Ive no issue with either player being banned but the severity of them seems too much in my opinion. If both players still played for Wigan would they have got the same length of ban i wonder?

As for Kendall getting a game this week i will tell you exactly why from experience. If you get all the full time refs on a track and tell them to run Kendall will outrun all of them by a long long way. Doesnt matter he cant read or understand the game. Its all based on fitness and Kendall will outrun Thaler, Hicks, Moore and the rest by a distance everyday of the week and that is what refereeing appointments are based on.

I'm not too fussed about the length of the bans either way - in isolation maybe they are harsh, but given both players' track records then not.

It's right that both will miss the semi and any potential Grand Final this year.

The thing for me is making sure that punishment hits where it hurts. Fines are a good way. With bans, it's always difficult for me because a Grand Final can have the same weighting as a league fixture, which is bonkers. Also I've seen players banned who were injured anyway and therefore would have missed at least some games in their ban anyway. We need to do better with the system if we want players to be disincentivised, Regarding fines, maybe a retention scheme where each player has an amount paid into a pot by their employers which they only get in their pocket if their record is clean. Any fines would go to the benevolent fund or grassroots investment.

Referees: like I said I think yellow cards were warranted for both these incidents in-game. In hindsight you would say both were reds given the bans handed out subsequently. All I would say again is that Dwyer was falling in to the tackle, and it takes some review and time to figure out where the intent really was (as much as you can), which you don't have time for in-game.

With Tomkins it was a bad tackle anyway, and then the video quite clearly showed why Myler reacted like he did. Again, it might be difficult to assess intent in-game and the judiciary took ages to make a call on both these cases yesterday, over hours and with a panel.

End of the day the referees have a tough job to do, I wouldn't want to do it. The referee didn't make Cats come out and play like that, doesn't MacNamara deserve some stick?