Totally agree NK.
I like Hill and for him not to be in the 17 would be cruel but I anticipate that Cooper will be given the nod for his experience. As you say it would be very brave of Peet to play 3 inexperienced players in Nsemba, Eckersley and Hill with Cooper sitting in the stands.

Yep, like most people I'll never play Super League, as much as I'd like to. I'm going to go ahead and assume you're in the same bracket.

You may be interested to learn that the refs have absolutely sod all to do with setting the rules around foul play and even less to do with bans, which are issued by the MRP (made up of ex players and legal professionals whom you presumably do respect more than refs). You'll need to do a bit more mental gymnastics to get to blaming this one on the refs, particularly as Dupree wasn't sent off on the day.

I’d be interested in your thoughts on that first 3 minutes yesterday Grimmy. We saying the refs got those right? If so, they have my total sympathy because clearly they’re being forced in to decisions like that.

It was 3 minutes worth of highlighting the mess the game is in regarding the fear of litigation and how it needs to be seen doing something/anything. I actually felt a bit embarrassed watching it tbh. I don’t lay the blame at the door of anyone within the game, it is ambulance chasers like Fozzard and Goulding who are to blame.

That first yellow on Cooper was absolutely ridiculous. I’ve genuinely no idea what he’s supposed to have done to avoid that. You can’t blame his tackle height or technique, the lads head has hit his hip ffs! It wasn’t a case of hitting late or acting recklessly. Genuinely, what has he done wrong? It’s not even a penalty

The 2nd one wasn’t a yellow either, though that one was a penalty. Think part of Kendall regretted the decision he’d just made so wanted to even it up.

Reaper. That’s my thoughts on it exactly. Coopers yellow is just ludicrous. Dufty’s one was worse if we assume the ref did it to even things up. If that is true the ref gave a decision he knew was wrong to make up for a decision he got wrong. We are in a very bad place if anyone thinks that’s acceptable.

Doesn’t mean I wasn’t yelling ‘off off off’ at the rope of my voice though.

For me, the whole red/yellow card culture is getting out of hand.

Player protection is definitely important, but there's only so much protection you can give them on a rugby field (where they are present voluntarily!!).

Some kind of edict needs to be passed to counteract all this nonsense. Contact with the head, if clearly accidental, should NOT merit any time on the sideline. Playing this sport is the players' job, and sending them off repeatedly is likely damaging to their reputation, their enthusiasm, their confidence, maybe even their earning potential, while at the same time is hugely dispiriting for the fans, who ultimately are the ones paying everyone's wages.

We shouldn't pretend that Kendal's actions early on in yesterday's game were anything other than ludicrous. Neither of those incidents was intentional, never mind malicious. He was trying to impose an extreme level of 'player protection' that was simply impossible to maintain in a contact sport, and though he suddenly seemed to realise this, keeping the cards well and truly in his pocket for the next 75 minutes, it was yet another disrupting factor in the flow of the match.

Not a lot to add to your thoughts really. Not how I want the game to look but that's down to Fozzard, Goulding etc making the sport so difficult to insure that they're having to make drastic changes to reduce head contacts. Refs are just (sometimes begrudgingly) doing as they're told.

Hopefully the two bins force the laws committee to rethink in terms of how we go about that. There's a massive threat to the sport at the moment in terms of being able to get insured which I don't think has been hammered home enough with the fans for whatever reason.

I just hope the MRP doesn’t double down and ban Cooper/Dufty, that will be adding insult to injury

I've got a bit of a persecution complex I know, but I do think, had the incidents happened the other way around, neither would have been carded.

I think it was an attempt to let Wire get some points on the board by putting us down a man, to try and make a contest of it, but the officials had no choice but to be consistent when the second incident occurred.

Yip
Tin Foil hat required

Well, we are getting into a pickle whoever is to blame. Was Cooper's tackle even a penalty? TBF the VR called for the card so not Kendall's "fault". The Dufty one was a pen as a swinging arm hit the shoulder and ended up head high - a yellow could have been given or not but the occasion meant it was guaranteed.

What I'm not clear about, and I'd appreciate other posters' thoughts, is was it Kendall or Liam Moore, the VR, who actually made the decisions to card Cooper (and Dufty)? Does the VR overrule the on-field ref?

VR can advise the on field ref but it’s the on field who makes the final decision. That’s said, if I were a ref and the Vr with the benefit of replays advised me to send someone off I would do it.

JD said in commentary that he heard the Vr advised for the Cooper yellow, not sure about the other.

Thanks, that what I thought. As has been mentioned, if the BBC commentators had shut up, we might have been able to hear what Kendall was saying! Certainly Kendall didn't seem to want to do anything initially about Cooper. And then, having carded Cooper, it put a different light on the Dufty situation.

I've been away for the last couple of days and still haven't watched the game back yet. Hoping to get to it shortly.