If he catches the ball cleanly, that tackle wraps him up quite nicely.

As he knocked on, he drops his head trying to gather the ball. The tackler has a split second to pull out - sadly he's not super human so is unable to do so.

An unfortunate accident. No card necessary.

YES, AND THE VIDEO TEAM OBVIOUSLY CONCLUDED THAT RUSSELS BODY POSITION WAS A MITIGATING FACTOR

DERRR

no point carrying on this little discussion, I'l let you have the final word

Thanks, I'll have it then.

It mitigates the punishment it doesn't remove it!

No need to be condescending about it, can't you just have a sensible discussion without resorting to little schoolgirl behaviour

Strange then, that no official saw fit to call foul play. The referee didn't see it that way, he called the linesman on who agreed, and the video ref reviewed it and saw similar. Cummings agreed.

Lieuluai did nothing wrong. He even went low himself, nothing wrong with his technique. However, the fact Russell had knocked-on and was lunging forward for the ball meant neither player was able to time the collision correctly. You even see Lieuluai realise, as Russell moves forward reaching for the ball, that the collision is coming too quickly and he turns his head just prior to impact. Regardless, no intent, no foul play.

There isn't always blame, and just because there's been a nasty collision and injury doesn't necessarily mean the tackler was reckless or negligent in their duty of care. Sometimes it's nothing more than a consequence of big, powerful men trying to flatten one another at high speed.

Yes, contact to the head - clearly, I think we all saw that - but for me Russell lunging forward in is the main reason for the clumsy collision. The officials clearly agreed. Nothing to penalise, pure accident, knock-on is the call.

Nothing wrong with your argument but we see it differently, despite the match officials not penalising it the coming days will tell us whether Lieuluai has a case to answer or not.

For what it's worth, and I've stated this a few times already, I don't think that Lieuluai had any intent to commit a foul.

Despite what I've said I would be amazed if the RFL took no action. I expect they'll warn him over his technique, or possibly a token punishment for the fact the impact was to the head. Even though I don't think Lieuluai did anything wrong, it was still a bad collision and they'll probably conclude he could have done more to avoid it.

well at least his injuries aren't as bad as first thought.

You really are special aren't you?

See this is the issue, the ref's mic clearly picked up him saying "shoulder to shoulder, no contact to the head, it's a knock on". Well you only need to view it once to realise that there definitely was contact to the head, and that can be further proved by the injuries sustained.

Regardless of whether the head was directly attacked (it was) any tackle that results in a player knocked out cold before he hits the floor, and needing a stretcher with a neck brace and an oxygen mask cannot be legal in this game. I hate the current shoulder charge rule as much as the next man, and I certainly don't want us to lose the last bit of biff in the game, but that incident was a straight red any day of the week - especially after 2 similar incidents have resulted in straight reds in the past few weeks

I agree with Wigan fans: Russell should get a short ban and letter about his technique for the temerity of keeping his eyes on the ball while an innocent opponent is trying to him.

Russell wasn't in possession when he got smashed. There was direct contact with the head. If Moon & Walmsley a send off, so was that. And so was Flynn.

If you look at the hit Webster took when I think it was Soliola caught him full in the face with his shoulder. Under the contact to the head rules, that was also a send off.

The inconsistency in the use of video refs is concerning. Both the Moon & Walmsley send offs were looked at several times by the VR, but Thaler chose not to.

There's also the issue of what should have been a try to Widnes following the hit on Russell. The decision was knock on against warrington. That meant it was free play to Widnes & they appeared to score off it. A fundamental error from the officials not to check this.

Ganson & Child awarding the Flynn try was so utterly shocking an error, you have to seriously question the competence & integrity of these people.

I find Cummings interjections in commentary to be laughable most of the time. Makes the game look stupid & reveals just what a pathetic agenda he had in place when in charge of the match officials department.

The VR was not asked to review it by Thaler. Leuluai had a responsibility to make sure he did not smash a player not in possession of the ball. He should have gone for the ball, not the man who didn't have it.

Having spoken to the touch judge and got his opinion Thaler was heard speaking to the VR through his mouthpiece to get his opinion and then commenting on the VR's opinion of the incident afterwards (repeating back what the VR had said to him to confirm the opinion) before he announced his decision on action to be taken to the players. It didn't show replays on the big screen but he did get the VR to look at the incident and ask for his verdict.

I don't agree at all that this is what happened. The VR's didn't review the footage & offer an opinion.

The whole Russell didn't have possession of the ball argument is a bit of a silly one. It's nothing like the Walmsley one, it wasn't a late shot. In slow motion it will look bad but at full speed, had Russell caught that ball it would have been a brilliant tackle. Unfortunately Russell knocked on and there was no way in hell Leuluai had time to pull out of that. Of course I'm not blaming Russell before the Anti Wigan brigade jump down my throat. I hope Russell has a speedy recovery but there was absolutely no intent in that at all. I think it's more of an unfortunate accident than anything else.