After crying themselves to sleep

We can all laugh at Saints' plight, but that red card never was.

It's all part of an incremental creep towards our collapse as genuine form of entertainment (and unlike RU, we don't have an over-hyped, over-promoted international programme to fall back on).

And before anyone quotes the lawsuit factor at me, that changes nothing about the question now facing us. Do you want to introduce your grandkids to the version of RL that so captured our imaginations when we were young, or do you want it to be tick and pass?

He’s jumped off the floor and hit his head though. If he doesn’t jump I’d be happy to give it a yellow at worst. Saints have a reckless attitude to defence, people like Knowles and Percival have been lucky they’ve not significantly injured players. I’d like us to explore somehow making the game as it is null and void so we can renegotiate contacts with more favourable rules about accepting some liability for the risks they have playing the game. I don’t think we can get the game back to where it should be otherwise.

There was absolutely no attempt from Makinson to bend his back and avoid head contact.

Cannot agree.

I don’t think there was intent but he was very reckless and had no control.

It was a very dumb play born out of clear frustration by TM, nailed on red card injury or not.

You simply cannot go into tackles recklessly and not attempting to bend your back and not expect to be punished if you make direct contact with the head.

It's only one of many highly questionable red cards this season. That's the bigger picture I'm talking about. It's literally destroying the game.

There has indeed been many questionable red cards this season. This, however, was not one of them.

If your arguing against the current rules, that's a whole other debate but to say this was never a red card is plain daft. He had both feet off the ground, was bolt upright and made direct contact with the head. End of discussion really.

That was absolutely shambolic from Saints, I honestly cannot remember a worse performance from them. Irrespective of how well or not they are coached the players should hold their heads in shame as their effort was totally unacceptable.

It was fun to watch though

No way was that a deliberate head shot. He wrapped his arms round the guy's body. The fact his feet left the ground is laughably irrelevant. How many tacklers leave the ground when they're trying to bring down an opponent? Probably fifty per cent of them. It signifies nothing other than determined effort.

We have to ask ourselves where all this is going to end. They've pulled back on next year's extra level of 'player protection' because they've realised it would make the game unplayable. But for how long?

Many, many years ago, before all this was a conversation piece, I took my son to hospital after a Saturday afternoon match, because he'd sustained a nasty ankle injury. The Casualty doctor was quite sniffy with us, as if we'd got what we deserved, and in the end, couldn't resist saying: 'If I had my way, rugby would be abolished tomorrow.'

That's the mentality behind all this. We shouldn't just be okay with it.

Some of Saints senior players need to have a look in the mirror, those young lads were hung out to dry yesterday.

Hull KR were outstanding, their biggest issue is that GF isn’t next week, as I don’t think anyone is beating them currently on this form. 7 weeks is a long time in sport, for everyone (including Saints!) to build for Old Trafford.

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