If I was a cynic I would say that with some clubs having paper thin squads the RFL decided to introduce fines so that sanctioned players would still be available to play for their team the following week. Obviously that's not the case as a £250 fine is a brutal penalty to pay when you only earn £50 k a year, even if they make some of it back from their appearance money.

Good evening Warrington. The above thread was exhausting to read through.

Bongser has merely one question: all these £250 fines - where does all that money go? Again merely an ingenuous question, no inference or prejudice. Curious, that's all.

Nope, I prefer a good conspiracy theory myself.

Well I heard every member of the committee is on £100K per year and are on a bonus for every sentence handed out.

Well I heard that the money raised by the £250 fines funds flights to Oz for the committee so they can check up on the NRL records of Warrington's Aussies to justify bans for them.....allegedly

Have they got any vacancies..i.ll be very fair especially to our friends down the east lancs

What gets me about the MRP disciplinary sheet is the lack of explanation around the sentencing. Going back to the week Wire played Catalans - Philbin gets 2 matches plus a fine while Batchelor of KR commits roughly the same offence and gets one match. Both players got the same paragraph of the disciplinary code cut and pasted into the sheet by way of explanation.

Now, I think the difference must come down to mitigating circumstances such as previous good/bad behaviour, nature of the incident etc... but why am I left to guess?

Would it really be too much to expect the members of the panel to explain their decisions fully - a bit like a judge explains his sentencing in a court of law - rather than just doing a bit of cut and paste. Or are the pie and peas going cold by then?

Just saying - as a member of the public who pays to go through the turnstiles (what I believe they now call a consumer of Rugby League), a bit more communication might be nice.

I think the mitigating factors in the case you point out is whether you play saints the next game or in 2 games time. BUT, obviously there is a huge bias against saints in the disciplinary panel. They're still getting favourable treatment, probably because of all the outcry for their players getting treated the same as everyone else for 6 games, or maybe there are bungs being handed out by everyone's favourite uncle

When you say "everyone's favourite uncle".......

Sounds like you're saying the disciplinary are acting as a handicap panel. To what end? To create a better televised spectacle? Now that you mention it - Sky pulled the Wakey match three weeks ago and put Wigan-Salford on instead - presumably because they didn't want to show a drubbing. Well if that's what they're doing they well and truly overloaded the topweight last night....

[All of the above was written while wearing a tin-foil hat with knitting needles sticking out of it that I saw a Saints fan drop outside the ground last night]

https://www.rugby-league.com/article/61 ... view-panel Nothing for us, nice change and seems the conspiracy against Saints as ended.

https://www.rugby-league.com/article/61 ... view-panel Nothing for us, nice change and seems the conspiracy against Saints as ended.