I see Mr McIllorum gets away with his spear tackle in the derby. Given that only days before they had pulled up and banned a player with a perfect disciplinary record plus another with record in this country for incidents that shouldn't even have been penalties, it shows a remarkable lack of consistency.



So it's okay to spear tackle someone, provided you get a mate to help you and they put their arms down first. What kind of BS is this? It wasn't the worst tackle in the world, but it was worse than both Wello's and Laffranchi's the previous week, which both resulted in a ban. If you read Wello's report it states he didn't intend to do it, Briers caused the lift and yet still banned him.

Mr Hock also escapes for the on field incidents. Rather bizarrely the disciplinary report states

Then the decision is 'No charge' Utterly bizarre given how late and deliberate it was.

www.therfl.co.uk/disciplinary

www.therfl.co.uk/disciplinary

McIllorum also got away with "Contact is made with head after opponent passes ball" on Roby in the 17th minute.

So 2 late tackles and 2 dangerous lifts in the same game by the same 2 Wigan players (including 1 with the longest record in the game), and no further action is deemed necessary.

Hock's on Roby:
"Player lifts opponent but DVD inconclusive as to how opponent lands. MRP - NFA"

It wasn't inconclusive on the DVD I watched!

At least Lance wasn't cited.

RL is an embarassing joke run by incompetent fools. Every week just brings ever more and more proof of the fact. For shame.

McIlorum has done well to escape a ban. As for Hock, there was nothing in any of those tackles to warrant any interference from the disciplinary as stated in their report.

I'm bemused as to why the swinging arm and subsequent high tackle from Lance on Sam with 5 top go isn't mentioned. I'll just have suck it up and lump it, just like you guy's will over the McIlorum tackle.

Don't agree with you regards to Hock (as you can see above). I thought his was worse than Wello's the previous week and he is still facing potential trouble for the ball throwing incident, but I agree with you in that I thought both Lance and McIlorum should have got a short ban.

Rather than sucking it up and lumping it, would it not be better if we just had a system that was transparent and consistent rather than the random approach they take now? It seems incidents are referred at random by some mysterious committee and there is no attempt to be consistent and no reference to previous findings either. A classic example are the spear tackles, the derby ones both worse than Laffranchi's as his barely went past the horizontal and landed the player on his back.

When Wellens was banned last week I said that there would be at least 3 or 4 incidents per game in SL that would be worse over the Easter weekend and I was proved right. The spear tackles, the late hits on Roby and Lance's swinging arm were all more severe incidents, yet none are considered worthy of a ban.

The problem is the variables within every incident. One would have to see the guidelines by which the disciplinary operate off to fully understand why seemingly identical infringements go unpunished. I don't whether that information has been made public, but it would certainly go along way to appeasing the fans and making the whole system more transparent.

There wasn't anything wrong with Hock's tackle on Roby early on. The late challenge was worthy of a caution, he didn't raise the arms into the tackle but still caught the player late.
McIlorum's spear tackle is consistent with what the disciplinary committee usually judge when another player is responsible for bringing the player down and the late challenge on Roby was shoulder first, and challenges like that never get punished.

There was nothing in the high shot by Hohaia either, it was just a lazy attempt late in the game. A ban for that would be very harsh.

The only real poor decision by the disciplinary in recent weeks was to ban Wellens because there was nothing in it. Other than that they've been pretty consistent.

The only way we will ever get some sort of consistency over discipline is to have the same panel every week for the season. Whether this is possible or not is another matter. That way we can see if there really is any proper consistency or not.

The system has been a joke for years, the only consistency from the discipline panel is it's lack of consistency.

A few years back everyone was getting letters for dangerous tackles no matter their previous record.

Even this year Brent webb got away with a fine on appeal for pushing a ref due to lack of intent and spotless record. Wellens got a 1 match ban due to lack of intent and spotless record. Before anyone says well one is dangerous the other is not. The grading of contact with a ref is grade C, Wellens was grade B, so even the rules are set up to find one more serious than the other. Hence why grade C carries up to 3 matches, B up to 2.

The only saving grace is that we have a half back for Widnes.

Players can get massive bans for making contact with the ref. Wasn't one player a couple of seasons back given a five match ban for contact with the ref? I don't think that particular offence has anything to do with seriousness in a rugby sense. It is about maintaining authority so really contact with the ref can't be compared to any other offence.

I don't remember seeing the tackle that is being discussed but if the player didn't land on his neck then chances are a ban won't be forthcoming as the player wouldn't have been put in a dangerous position. Obviously it was a risky tackle as a caution wouldn't have been given, especially this season when there have been a fair few bans thrown around the place. But I would much rather have this stricter regime where tackles involving the head and neck are concerned than the weak and highly dangerous version we had up to a couple of seasons ago.

And nobody is mentioning Wilkin's special attention to Hock? Anyway, moving away from the typical vitriolic anti Wigan nonsense, why not go an look at Warrington for a team that get away with it? Morley seems to make one of two high tackles every game I see but do I see him banned that often?

The disciplinary is hugely inconsistant, how many players have thrown a ball into the crowd in recent weeks? How many have been warned by the RFL. The same could be said for spear and high tackles, time and time again it's the same inconsistant news. Cunningham's jab for a broken jaw, what did he get?