Absolutely this, if a an incident is good enough for a ban after the event then it should have been a red card at the time of it. The ref has missed 3 red cards essentially.

Has anyone looked at the percentage increase in the amount of bans this year from previous years?

I`m sure Hurrell has had 2 or 3 late hits on a player chalked off.
The Cas player`s deliberate use of an elbow got 2 games ffs.
The Fusitua one is a complete joke.
Probably not good for the game Leeds winning the GF from 5th/6th.

The Cheyse Blair elbow was an absolute stinker. Shooting out and reading your opposite number is no way the same. Shambles of a sport

Yeh that elbow to get the same ban is one that really makes you question what are we trying to penalise here.

They have this obsession with "flexion of the neck."
The Salford players head whips back pretty hard, but that doesn't mean it was an illegal tackle, it just means his head whipped back.
It's a hard thing to fake, but I wouldn't be surprised to see someone try and fake it id they think they've been hit late

Tripping someone up and an assault to the head with the elbow both warrant the same length of punishment it seems.

Even taking the trip out of it and just looking at the two ‘high shots’ surely they deserve a different punishment. Ones a slightly mistimed tackle as you would normally defined tackle, the other was a blatant ant elbow to the head with very little control or regard for the safety of his opponent.

In a way, if Blair had have got four games, I could have maybe got my head around Fus getting two, even if I didn’t agree with it I could get the logic and the grading system, but for them both to get 2 is beyond ludicrous. Mistimed contact sport incident vs blatant attack to the head.

I know we need to protect players but this is a contact sport. Of all our recent first team game suspensions the only one that for sure would have led to a ban in the NRL was Tetevano's. Across other games this round just 4 players suspended (which in itself is too many), but suggesting Leeds alone had almost as many players deserving bans from one game which wasn't exactly marked by violence??

I sincerely hope Hetherington is having a go behind the scenes. If its not working then he should go public and call them out, and sod the fines.

I wonder who is reviewing the games and putting cases forward to the committee? Is that the key to our ongoing issues?

However that does not explain things like the Blair 2 game ban and some of these incidents getting 2 games.

Whatever we need to get our house in order because it’s messing up our whole season

I was initially pleased to see Thaler back but mo doubt he will be back in the Championship after missing so much.

I didn`t see the other two so cannot comment but the Sezer trip was blatant and really should have been 4/6.

Reason being it was at the time Salford were very much on top and the trip prevented a clear run and probably 6 points which in the context of the game was key.

It’s funny you should mention the NRL because I think they’re having exactly the same issues over there at the minute, I’ve just watched a segment from Chanel 9, with Gould and Smith questioning the CEO, Andrew Abdo, about what he wants the game to look like, about their current match review panel, about the fact that players accept a certain amount of risk, and even about origin being reffed different. He gave an iffy answer about SOO being higher intensity so therefore needing to be different, then compared the risk to driving a car while still saying we have to take the decision to take that risk away from players.

A lot of this seems to stem from the Dale Finucane 2 game suspension, for what was an ugly clash of heads if anyone saw it, but shouldn’t have been more than that. There’s also been a lot of inconsistencies with hip drop tackles and suspensions, as well as Asofa Solomona not getting called up despite breaking his opponents teeth with what looked an ugly elbow on the floor.

On both sides of the world there seems to be a real disconnect atm between those running and reviewing the sport, those refereeing, those playing and us fans watching.

What's the percentage increase in bans from last year, anyone?? I'm guessing 200% at least.

That's the problem really, that its about being seen to be more strict on bans rather than being more consistent on what is and isn't acceptable on the field. We can all point to numerous incidents that have not resulted in bans where other players have been banned for almost identical actions.

The judiciary of the game are running scared of future litigation and are massively inconsistent in their actions.

If the post on the YEP is correct, and I’ve added them up right, there’s been 114 bans this year. I couldn’t bring myself to add the total number of matches missed or cards dished out. We’re the worst banned though with 20 separate bans in total in 22 games…

Not been able to find data for last year.