Watson in his press conference criticising disciplinary panel charge on Greenwood too. Agar 2 weeks ago with Mellor.

I must admit I do get confused by the lack of consistency.

Was it Arona that got tipped on his shoulder in a tackle? Disciplinary I’m sure didn’t ban the player yet a push in the back 0.2 seconds after ball is released Is worthy of a ban.

Another way to look at it would it be fair to say a 1 match ban intimates that the offence was worthy of a sending off? Again were any of the incidents picked up last Friday fall into that category?

Great sense shown by MC on this issue. Perhaps he could obtain a round robin of signatures to his declaration from the CEOs of all the SL teams and present it together with their general thoughts of their policy making in general. Then all of them present it in person to those idiots at Red Hall. It really does require a tough stance from the Clubs before we don't have a game to follow.

There seems to be some fantasy that the RFL just come up with the guidance that the MRP follow at a whim and the poor clubs have no say in it.

Execs of the clubs had input into if not designed the disciplinary system.
Execs like Carter know who is on the panel.
There was and is game-wide input into rule and interpretation changes.

Well it clearly isn't working then, is it?

Keep digging, think you've totally misjudged the mood

Yes, but Watson or Agar know anything about the rules of the Game Trojan, well not as much as the Ghost.

The RFL in its current guise is a master at meaningless management speak. Words like "our partners" is typical of it when talking about other agencies they work with.

I can guarantee Rimmer will say something like, "I respect Mr Carter and his view, he is entitled to it, and we will take all these things on board moving forward as we discuss our future path." It will mean "we don't care what you say. We spent many meetings devising this. We used Powerpoint and everything, and even got the Family Circle biscuits in, not the usual Peak Freans rubbish."

A system is only as good as the rules you put in place within the system. Rimmer is a committee man to his boots. You can tell it from how he comes across. No vision. No vim. A dinosaur from the seventies in spirit.

The disciplinary rules should be general in their tone, not prescriptive. The more general, the more the panel has flexibility to rule on what was dangerous, reckless or deliberate, and take into account innocuous or incidental contact as part and parcel of a contact sport that is getting faster. The more prescriptive, as they are now, the more you put an incident into a tick-box with little flexibility.

It is partly the Ganson mentality of refereeing, where they think we turn up to watch a great example of rule enforcement. It ruins games. The rules are there simply to ensure fairness and safety, but fundamentally it's a sport. The likes of Rimmer and Ganson and are turning the sport into an exercise in rule-enforcement, which isn't the right way.

The problem here as stated a number of times and that you have so far failed to answer is why there were so many more innocuous incidents looked at this week than in previous weeks where there was a full round of games.
If the MRP were consistent in their review process and treated all games like those last week (when they only had 2 or 3 to review) then every game would throw up between 10 and 20 incidents for them to rule on and clubs would be getting players banned left, right and centre.
In reality, half of the incidents flagged this week would not even have merited a view if they had 6 games to review not 3.

That's where the inconsistency lies IMO

Facts are attendances are falling year on year, and the on field product has become so dull that even Sky don’t want to pay as much as they used to now.

If things carry on the way they are, with clubs taking the p*** with postponing games and the MRP with their daft suspensions I won’t be watching next year.

But you haven't really brought any facts. You've brought an opinion, which you're entitled to hold, but opinions aren't facts.

You disagree with MC's statement. Fine. I respect that. But MC will know much more about the problems with the game and those who run it, so if he is saying these things, they are not without foundation.

The game needs reform, but off the pitch and on high. The RFL rely on blind loyalty. The problem they will have is that over the last year, people have found other things to do, or got out of the habit. They need to win them back. Banning players for innocuous challenges because of strict adherence to tick-box disciplinary codes will not put bums back on the seats, and the RFL might have to work harder than they think.

I know how laws work, and I know when they work properly. The more prescriptive, the more detailed, the more unjustly they work. Rules that are more general in nature, that can be defined based around general principles and goals, allow flexibility and allow everything to be judged on their actual merit, rather than, "contact after the ball has been released is a category X, which means a ban of X".

We're in the entertainment business. We're not in the rule-making business.

Spot on.

Just seen the hampshire incident on face book...wow in effect by getting a ban the oanel are saying he should of been sent off well if players get sent off for that we may end up with 2 v 2 .its nothing short of disgusting

It's what I alluded to earlier, when reviewing it back the panel should consider if it was a sending off offence before issuing a ban.