There was nothing wrong with Wilkes on Burrow, there was nothing wrong with the Puletua challenge last week. Yes, we need to cut out the mindless violence and deliberate acts of foul play - but a robust tackle is and should be part of the game.

RL is getting soft.'"

This.

The way I see it Webb's was nearly as bad as what happened with Inglis last week, he copped a three match ban after appeal.

The Burrow incident would prob not have been an incident if Burrow was of average RL height. Im not saying he should be but at the end of the day the guy couldnt get out the way and tucked his arms in, presumably to stop it looking like he tackles someone without the ball and just sheer reaction to someone running at you.

Burrow came off second best, with the ground itself prob causing nearly as much harm as the person that he ran straight into did.

If he is gonna pass late and try sucking in defenders, stuff like that will happen, just like it usually does to a lesser degree and just like kickers get taken late etc etc.

Its a game of RL and sometimes this things happen, its just the way.

Yes it does sometimes, it was nothing eh, just like the famous Carl Ablett challenge on Sam Tomkins. We all knew Abletts' tackle bore no malice yet he copped a 3 game ban because it was Ratboy involved. Three games for Wilkes minimum if we go by the Tomkins yardstick.

hmmm, I dont think you understood my point, taking someone out deliberatly and doing it wrongly (ie, Webb, or Ablett from your example) is different to two players running at each other and coliding in a way that hurts one of them.

While its bad, its the way of things that Burrows against a prop forward in that situation would always come off second best, whereas Ablett ran in and took Tomkins out while he practically stood still catching a ball if I remember right.

Burrows took the risk of trying to suck in a prop to create a gap, and the prop hit him whereas Kirmond had already kicked the ball. The RFL are going to have to decide whether Webb deliberatly jumped at him to stop him collecting the kick / or just plain do damage, or whether he was indeed trying to block the kick and then decide on an outcome.

With the Burrows incident it becomes a question of whether he could have peeled off before hitting him, or if he did anything to make the situation worse.

That leads to several interesting questions, could he have moved (bearing in mind he may have believed Burrows was going to dummy) and could he have positioned his arms differently.

But thats just my opinion on what I would look at. I doubt that Webb's little performances later on in the match did him any favours though.

If they decide that players hit like Rob does constitute a punishment its going to be interesting though. Do they in that case make it the same when a player kicks and then in taken out? Do they apply it across the board that when someone delays a pass but gets hit as it goes away, they take the play back?

A lot of ex players and players are saying the game in going soft what with all the talk about shoulder charging etc, this would probably make it worse.

Btw, in the incident with Tomkins, several squad mates saw something wrong and chose to step in, with Burrows no one batted an eye lid till he didnt get up, that leads me to think that they didnt see anything that malicious and fully expected to play on with Rob getting back to his feet after coming off second best.

Whilst there are many incidents within a game that are not so clear cut in terms of foul/no foul, deliberate/accidental the onus is on the defender/s to make sure their tackle does not illegally harm the attacking player. A risk assessment if you like, you go in swinging your arms around/above the chest area then there is a greater liklihood of there being illegal contact.
When it is against shorter players that risk is CLEARLY even greater so the onus falls absolutely on the defender to lessen the chance of harm occuring(like tackling around the mid-riff for instance..who'd thunk it!) by not doing so you have recklessly decided not to change what you are doing (by not considering your actions or even worse doing it deliberately)

As for the comment regarding the ground making things worse, please, how ridiculous. it's a bit like saying a pedestrian got run over by a car but it was made worse by the road for being there... If the car hadn't have hit the ped then there would have never have being the incident in the first place.
Hope the dirty little mong gets a 2/3 match ban

No one seriously expects Wilkes to be punished because hit burrow a little late, nobody expects Webb to be punished because he hit him a fraction after he kicked the ball.

Wilkes should be punished because regardless of what Burrow was doing, Wilkes effected a tackle by hitting a player in the face with his elbow after the ball had been passed and Webb because he made general contact with the head

Neither were a shoulder charge, nor an attempt on a shoulder charge, one was a block/chargedown which went too high and hit a guy in the head, one was a poorly attempted tackle which resulted in a player getting an elbow to the head, both were poor challenges, don’t think either were particularly malicious but both were against the rules and quite clearly dangerous.

Its nothing to do with the game going soft, nothing to do with a change in the game or the banning of a shoulder charge both are already against the rules and have been outlawed and have been at least since I first played the game 20 years ago.

Meanwhile back in the NRL it appears from the Rabbitohs game that the rules over there have been changed again, if you charge into and collide with the kicker, it is a penalty. You cannot charge the kicker. You can only attempt to tackle the kicker. This seems a reasonable rule change to me, as plenty of times you see late and cheap shots on the kicker with the ready made (but in 99% cases risible) excuse "he was committed".

Shame the NRL just does these things, ignoring this side of the planet. Why they and the RFL can't find a way to all play to the same rules is a scandal, but the NRL really couldn't care less about the sport elsewhere.

That's a rule that should be brought in over here. It's not right that a forward can just run right at a halfback and clean him out after kicking the ball with no intent other than to injure the kicker and have it deemed legal.

In the Wigan vs Cas game Danny Orr went off with a dead leg after Mike McIlorum caught him with his hip after the kick. Perfectly legal as it stands but I don't see why it should be. It's the point when a player is most vulnerable and is much more likely to pick up an injury.

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