Fenton Rogers may miss the whole season if he puts a foot wrong, it's a crazy situation when the rules are being applied retrospectively..

Sounds like another half baked RFL scheme to me. 1 rule for some and 1 rule for the rest.

Everyone should start with a clean slate otherwise it seems biased

On the plus side, they've put in a rule to stop the constant appeals from certain clubs, with a failed appeal now resulting in 5 points on a players record.

I feel for the garage that Mike Rush and Paul Wellens get their diesel from.

Personally Luke Thompsons is the most difficult for me in a stranger way
Most if not all his 5pts won't come off until next years GF
That means as soon as he picks up ANY kind of points even for a NFA (think thats 2pts?) or something that wouldn't even normally be a ban (6pts or over) he'll cop a ban every time !
Hes walking a tightrope every game until 2026!
And all for something that was IMO F*** All
At least Byrnes/Smiths drop off April/May/June etc.

10 of us in pub tonight discussing and 4 or 5 hadn't heard this was coming in
When we explained they virtually all said how can you punish people this year at a higher level than what it should be I.e Byrne get 4 games this year for a 1/2 game offence based on previous offences from the last year, when they were punished last year based on the system in place at that time.

And when You weigh up NRL players come with Zero

Anyway

I can't work out how he's on 5 points looking at the RFL disciplinary site. That has him receiving 4 grade B charges in 2024, so that should be a point each and put him on 4. They come off a point at a time in early March, mid may, early July and then a point from the GF comes off in October. He can probably get away with a game ban for anything under a Grade D for most of the season but it's frustrating that you only come in to this season with a poor disciplinary history if you did anything wrong in 2024 and are punished on the timing of it and also that new overseas players are free as a bird.

We'll be reet anyway. It'll at least open up some good opportunities for young lads and fringe players.

The RFL seem to have been thrust in to action after Sam Burgess criticised players carrying points over from 2024 and are going to look at some tweaks, before communicating the final version before the season starts.

Someone should make some tweaks to the RFL ... like replacing them all with people who can actually do the job.

Their response to people asking why they've not released official communication about these amendments was to just say 'we told the club's in December'. That's ok then, just ignore everyone else across the game who might want to know.

It's some number being in the top brass at the RFL, especially when you decide to pay a company to help do your job. I mean, it seems like IMG have seen them coming but they're at least taking some the RFL's flak nowadays.

These are all good lines, and I agree with every one of them, but unfortunately when the dust settles after this latest micro-sighted cockup, and it will do because it always does - they'll still be there, earning massive paycheques for drinking free gin and pretending they are professional administrators (which at least are two things they seem to be good at).

The whole thing has been handled in such a shambolic way that, if it was a private company, you'd expect people to be losing their jobs. A month out from the start of a new season and we are talking about this?

There was talk of the points from last season being wiped from players' records, but a HKR player has just picked up a ban on the back of his previous record from last season. Not a lot of clarity on what's happening here at all