Quote: Cronus "Because he was only charged with a Grade 1 Dangerous Throw (which only constitutes 125 demerit points) and submitted an early guilty plea. As each 100 points received by a player results in a 1-match suspension, the early guilty plea came into play. The answers are out there if you care to look.
A penalty is still recognition of the offence by the referee. The Sam Burgess lift was in reality about 2 seconds. 10 seconds in RL is another tackle at least. Yes, the ref paused but the penalty and 'on report' was given. Was that the correct decision? Not in my opinion.
Look, as I've said, whether the punishments in the NRL have been sufficient is debatable. But my point remains - some have been saying these tackles have been let go, ignored, unpunished. That simply is not true. Whether the punishments are severe enough is another matter and absolutely needs looking at.'"
But the point is they might as well be let go. What's a penalty - assuming there is a penalty, I still contend in a lot of cases there isn't - without a suspension, preferably a significant suspension. Is it any sort of deterrent? Not really. If it was a genuine deterrent then these tackles wouldn't be frequently found in every game.
The NRL doesn't take them seriously and it's a joke that McLean received 7 weeks, all things considered. The number of incidents that have happened after the fact (and there's threads about this on Australian forums if you want to look) shows that the NRL care nothing about said tackles. They've scapegoated the Melbourne player and really ought to be ashamed of themselves for how they've handled the entire affair - and how they've conducted themselves prior to the injury.
I don't know how you could take any position other than the NRL are idiots and the punishment to McLean is excessive given how the judiciary usually turn a blind eye to those tackles.
