Having watched your game today the Welsby hit was a similar principle. Not malicious but direct contact shoulder to head. He should have walked and should miss next week.

Knowles should also be banned, poor show that one which clearly was malicious.

Welsbys shoulder was no where near the head

As mentioned, it’s a game of fine margins. A fraction earlier he’d have made perfect contact and raised the crowd but sadly got it wrong. The question would be why do that to a kicker when the modern game is very strong on anything late or high?

Bit of a head rush moment but not malicious. I’m concerned that we’re paying him marquee wages and his performances aren’t great

Don’t think Bateman going off was why Wigan lost, it was more the lack of cohesive attack with Cust and Farrell missing, added to by the French injury. Injuries to key players can make a huge difference to some teams

It was late but Bateman isn’t a dirty player so I don’t think it was malicious. He’s also good mates with Sezer from his Canberra days.

As for the Welsby one it was a brilliant shot, one that we should be celebrating and using to sell the game. That happens in the NRL and it’s over every program and channel. Here we are slowing it down frame by frame looking for an excuse to ban him. It’s a joke.

The issue I have is making a decision on the incident based on slowed down replays rather than in real time.

I therefore don’t think it’s possible to make a judgement.

Agree , I thought the same about the Singleton/Sironen , players are committed to a tackle and they cant change there motion in real time , the slowing down with the camera footage just makes things look a lot worse , if the kick was 0.5 seconds later and Batemen would have forced a knock on it would have been the tackle of the game. This is a physical game , things like this happen . Its no wonder this isnt an attractive game anymore we are training the rugby out of the players .

Tricky one for the disciplinary panel as any ban will now be served during the world cup.

There's a friendly game already arranged v Fiji so that will count as one of the games for any player banned.

I think this can be related to TRY decisions too.

How often do they look to see if a ball is grounded based on a blurred image? Real time often shows it more clearly.

Finucane got 2 games for a very similar tackle where he shot out the line and did the damage with a head clash. I dont think he will miss a GF because of it but the precedent is there

Bateman is awful for the type of money he's being paid, sooner he's off back to Aussieland the better

I thought the Welsby one was a cracking tackle too but I can see why people are complaining as similar have seen players sent off the field and given bans.

Bateman Grade D (3 to 5 matches)
Knowles 2 matches
Welsby fine, no ban to previous good behavior!!

Awful is very harsh, he’s one of the best second rowers in the league still. I just think after what he did in Oz and his wage expectations are sky high.