No, the charge is making contact with the head with his shoulder. The timing of the tackle is an aggravating factor IF he is found guilty of the charge.

It's actually a bit of a farce that an experienced referee has seeked the advice of another highly experienced referee to check various replays and was advised that 'there was nothing in it'.

You couldn't make it up!

Oh so is it just contact with the head that can potentially career or life threatening injuries?

No, but contact with the head is more likely to cause brain injury than contact with any other part of the body, owing to the fact it is where the brain is located.

So the charge is basically because of the respective sizes of he players? Had O'Brien been taller it would not be an issue? Weird.

The size of the players has never been taken into consideration, it is the responsibility of the tackler to ensure they do not make contact with the head. I think it is why Rob Burrow is so effective.

Does he not have a head?

Oh well; if nothing else I was right about everything except scruton not being cited.
The irony if being called a chump and accused of playing the victim card by bulls fans is not lost on me at all at this point.

I believe he does, but the surface area below it is much smaller than most and players really have to bend their back to get to it.

Thats alright then. The initial impact is very much shoulder to shoulder.

A direct shoulder>head impact would have seen the head moving away from the shoulder. Instead there was a whiplash type effect where O'briens head moves towards Scrutons shoulder.

Unfortunately, it is not only the initial impact that is looked at. If they decide contact with the head is made it doesn't really matter if the initial contact was elsewhere.

He's tweeted that he is going to fight his case. No early plea. His disciplinary record is good (mitigating) - hopefully not needed.

The disturbing thing about shoulder charges over the last 3 rounds is that they have all been subject to trial by media. Stevo, Eddie & Phil have all judged the severity of each tackle first and pronounced the verdict to the tv audience.

Conspiracy theorists might argue that this is all part of trying to introduce a ban on shoulder charges in SL, to mimic the NRL, without the RFL having to lose face and admit they are playing poodle to the NRL?

If they were right, then you might expect the disciplinary to be totally un-moved by any plea in mitigation.

The mute point here is whether the RFL disciplinary will decide that the officials and the video referee were all right on the day or they were all wrong.

That's a good point.

If the beak decides Scrutes is guilty, its a kick in the nuts for Mr Ganson And Mr Silverwood, as well as the touchies.

Ho hum.

For me, the clincher was that we did not see half the Cas pack pile in to bray hell out of Scrutes. Indeed, we saw no hint of the usual (and understandable) response when one of your mates has just been decked unreasonably. Deacs used to get clattered like that regularly during games. We never saw a procession of big opposition fellas beating a trail to Rot Hall the following Tuesday then, and nor IMO should we on this occasion. It was NOT a deliberate off-the-ball clattering. Had it been, we could have had no complaints.

But if minds are already made up...?