If Hock had done it, there would be uproar, bit like Barton in football. Feel sorry for Hock, no hard feeling from his time at Salford, the RFL must show consistency and ban Gale, time will tell.

Given that Hock has been charged in the past for pulling the Ref's arm to talk I don't think the RFL should allow this to go unpunished.

Accidental offsite gets a punishment, accidental high tackles do too. There's far too much of this going on in the game and it should be stamped out, while we are at it, get 10 meters for arguing with the ref back in.

Storm in a teacup

Not so sure. RL as a game is utterly dependent on all players, no matter how pumped up or angry, absolutely respecting the referee's right to make the decisions without fear. You might think he's a blind/biased/incompetent git, and you can swear about him to your mates behind the sticks or in the dressing room, but you cannot ever threaten him verbally or physically. Cross that line and the game is done for. It's bad enough having soccer players running in to surround and try to physically intimidate their refs, but in RL, with our hyper-aggressive blokes who are paid to bash each other ? Very, very dangerous. That's why Graham's ban in Oz is quite right, and why Hock's bans were correct too.

I thought Gale should have been given a ban for that, even if Thaler was willing to pretend he thought it wasn't deliberate (it clearly was - I'm a lot less agile than Gale, but I could have avoided walking into Thaler in the same position). Certainly if an amateur player deliberately walked into me like that in a game, I'd send him straight off. Otherwise, you really are inviting much worse to come.

Hard to see that as anything other than deliberate - made worse by a bit of amateur lip-reading; he clearly shoulders Thaler out of the way like a surly teenager, and swears while he's doing it.

He's lucky no to be cited - Mr Child would have had him before the beak in a flash.

Is there really far too much of this going on? I think it's very rare as is actual arguing with the ref.

There are times when I've thought the refs should be stronger but those moments are few and far between. The games on TV show what the players are actually saying to the ref and the vast majority of the time it appears perfectly respectful.