Wow. I assumed it was some sort of pulling him up off the ground. I've just seen the clip posted by Matthew Shaw and he was already getting up!

So we play a sport where you’re allowed to knock 10 buckets of crap out of the opposition for 80 mins but a mere grab on the shirt sees you banned for 4 weeks. Make it make sense.

oh do bore off Mr self righteous. Your boys turn every tackle into a Greco-Roman wrestling bout and you come out with that boll@x! You whine on and on about the MRP ruining the game when one of your grubby little lot gets done. But you’re backing them for this? Saddened? Just sad I’d say.

I definitely think it's worth a conversation about it. It does seem far too harsh a charge, I agree with that and I'd be crying for leniency if it were a Saints player again, of course I would. But all I'm saying is they've clearly set the precedent for it with the previous bans. There is no difference between this one and the others. They were all highly likely to be uninjured, but the RFL said it isn't up to the players to make that call, hence the bans. It's such a tough one this, in hindsight, Mata'utia is fine, so it appears to be a ban for almost nothing. Had Mata'utia had a serious injury, Vaughan wouldn't have known. That's my point, do you get where that's coming from? When Vaughan takes hold of him he's still on the floor, lay on his side, all he's done is roll over. Walmsley sat up and tried to get up twice when he had a broken neck. If he had the ball and it was the last minute, he could end up in a far worse spot than he was if he was then pulled over. We can't just punish these if there is a serious injury and not if there isn't. It really is on the players to not touch them. It'd be great if the players didn't feign injury to get penalties and waste time too, but that's unfortunately present in all non-combat sports these days.

Looks like an absolute offence to me so no mitigation
Always guilty

If player's welfare is paramount - potential solution - any player getting up slowly in the last 5 minues of a game - clock stops - instant substitution and that player stood down for 11 days as with a grade 1 concussion in Oz. Might cut out the cheat's charter bit. I suppose one caveat - stand down not compulsory if foul play caused the 'injury' and a doctor passes the player fit. Apart from that no appeals, no ifs, no buts, no fetching your Philadelphia lawyers with some bizarre argument about the angle of flexion of the opponent's arm.... Otherwise we're getting into the ridiculous ends of games we see in NFL where a team winning can just keep 'taking the knee' to see out the clock.

I totally understand the not pulling up a potentially injured player and thought it was stupid of Vaughan at the time but understandable in the context of the game.
I do think though that a player pretending to be injured who is pulled at should get the same ban as the “puller”. That would be the fairest solution.
No doubt Saints would get in a psychiatrist to claim Matautia was suffering from PTSD rather than a physical injury but that is detail, it may work as a deterrent in both sides

https://www.seriousaboutrl.com/paul-vau ... dia-82241/

https://www.seriousaboutrl.com/paul-vau ... dia-82241/

The DC is making the game a laughing stock. The RFL needs to get a grip of them.

Helping an opposition player to regain his feet is a common occurrence after the ball has gone dead.

Will we now see the Disciplinary Committee banning players for this too?

We will be watching tick-and-pass rugby soon, the way the game is going.

Good observation.

The problem with the DC is that they show zero common sense or flexibility when dealing with individual cases.

It's quite obvious to everyone looking at the Vaughan incident what is going on - Player is winding down the final seconds of a close game, opponent light heartedly gives him a friendly tug to tell him to get up. Witness the smile on Vaughan's face and you know this is almost banter between the two.

Now this is totally different from what the law was set up for - If Vaughan had aggressively grabbed an opponent lay prone on the floor then that would be totally different to what actually happened and would deserve a punishment. But it's blindingly obvious this incident isn't that, so the DC should use common sense and look at the obvious context of individual incidents and don't just apply a single blanket judgement, which is what is presently happening.

The game is run by stupid people

You can't ban someone for a slow play the ball in the 79th minute of a professional RL game He'd run 162 metres with the ball by that point and done 20 tackles. He played it like Konrad Hurrell does in the 4th minute after his first run. The refs could just deal with it by stopping the clock if they think it's being overly slow and if there is a 'fake' injury and they stay down, use the green card. That's what it's for.

As daft as this all seems, the solution to it is players not touching the ball carrier. The bans have to stay until players understand that. What they can't do is let Vaughan off (Because he was time wasting) then ban the next fool who does it when the player turns out to have had a serious injury.