The biting allegation against a Toulouse player and official counter allegation by his Club, Toulouse Olympique, that a Rochdale player had him in a dangerous neck leverage brace raises an interesting safety concern.

The player claims a spontaneous safety reaction to get himself out of the dangerous position.

The Rochdale player allegedly delivering the neck brace shields his body from the referee and brings the Toulouse player to the ground out of view of the far side touch judge closest to the incident.

The Club's official response is here:
.... in the interests of better safety, do we need a 2nd referee?

If not, how should we better manage safety in these situations like the neck leveraging.

Just to clean up the ruck, yes

Where would we get a second referee from? We are struggling to get one decent referee per game. Ben Thaler's new role was to get more referees coming through, but we don't seem to be seeing them. Roby went to Australia, Thaler and Child have both covered games in the Championship. We are short on referee numbers as it is.

Cant see anything clearly from that footage. Would a second ref be able to see anything more without being so close as to impede play?
In answer to your question yes, a second ref would be good, but I'd question where those would come from. We are struggling as it is to get one decent ref. It would mean we would need at least 6, possibly 9 for televised games alone each weekend if Catalan are at home.
I'm sure the RFL want to do it- but it's lack of bodies that's preventing it.

I cant understand why Refs cant do 2 or even 3 games over a weekend Thur-Sun

If there are 2 of them then the distance covered would be reduced significantly

Many do. SL largely being spread across Thu-Sat with CH and L1 games on Sunday is a blessing in disguise for the RFL.

Despite all the hype about 2 refs its not working as well as some people think.
For me Australia RL is to much stop and start.

Second ref keeps the ruck clean (mostly) play the balls are pretty quick and they actually play the ball with the foot! would love two refs to be trialled here to see if they make a difference

There just aren't enough refs available to make this work. Made even worse by inexperienced refs getting ripped apart if they have a bad game whilst learning their trade. If you think there's loads coming through, have a look how old (or young) the TJs are at this week's game for your club. That's who the 2nd refs would be.

We really should have some version of 2 refs, whilst there are problems with the recruitment and development of referees, the game is too fast and under too much scrutiny for 1 ref.

We don't have to have the same system they use in Australia, I'd prefer 1 ref with a "roving assistant" to give the ref information and to give instructions to the players during play.

So it wouldn't cost much as we wouldn't need another fully trained ref per game just another touch judge, which could be paid for by getting rid of in goal judges.

Just for the record, MRP / RFL state in the Rochdale v Toulouse incident The DVD clearly shows the player being subject to a forceful grapple tackle by the opponent and both players go to the ground. The player has a broken nose and possibly had some difficulty breathing. It is accepted the opponents arm should not have been around the player’s mouth. - See more at:
So it's dangerous, it wasn't picked up, and because the bite mark was evidenced and not the tackle, the Rochdale player got let off and the Toulouse player got 4 weeks ( the minimum ). Not fair on balance.

I think player safety needs to be the priority to lessen serious injuries, so that we get our priorities right.

Heck in my day, cracking someone's nuts, and a right hook to the jaw were part of being a man in RL. The game has rightfully moved on, so have the sponsors that support the game and the crowds that come. Something has to be done to better police the tackle.

It's urgent, IMO. Not enough ref's is lame - get enough refs or officials.