Quote: Cruncher "The booing is one thing - Sam laughs at it, as do the Wigan fans.
But no player has any cause to go out and try to smash the head off an opponent. If any player hates another player that much, or is so easily wound up, he's in the wrong sport - this is a professional game, and if nothing else, injuring a rival deliberately is more than likely to get you sent off or suspended, which reduces your own team's chances. Aside from that, it also causes bad blood between teams, and can lead to yet more incidents of trouble, more suspensions etc.
So all this crap about 'he deserves to get banjoed' is just that - total crap issuing from cavernous crania.
Any player buying into that nonsense is not deserving of a professional contract. He should be on the terraces with the rest of the morons.'"
Completely agree, have never and will never advocate intentionally injuring another player. Sam Tomkins will continue to get the odd late shoulder and people will try and hit him a bit harder in the tackle. That's more or less fair, in as far as that it has happened to creative half backs since the very dawn of time (when druids worshipped at a place called Stone Henge). He is also in possession of the kind of side-step that will occasionally result in high tackles of the 'reach-and-grab' variety by lumbering, wrong-footed forwards, who will be duly penalised.
Part of being a top RL half-back is the ability to take those knocks, and avoid them where you can. Tomkins has so far proved to be considerably more physically robust than he looks.
If he (or anyone else) is getting anything more sinister than that, the disciplinary will need to deal with it appropriately.
He may well get himself chinned by somebody at some point, which is not the same as thinking he "deserves" it, and the culprit will duly be banned for a game or 2. Tomkins is no doubt quite capable of looking after himself.
I am fairly sure that the reason he does the wind-up stuff is a dim awareness that angry brains don't make good decisions, and as somebody who thrives on any kind of dis-order in defensive lines, that can only be to his advantage.
That was a long post wasn't it? Oops.
