Apparently, and this is only according to the Twitter, if we hadn't played the early guilty plea, contested it and won he still loses the early guilty plea for next time. It's not like a tennis review where you keep it if you're right, you get to use it the first time you're cited and that's it.

Makes a ridiculous system even more ridiculous if that's true. Still absolutely mystified as to what is wrong with the tackle.

He did much worse to Burrow the other week and nothing was done. SOL's frustrated smacked into Taylor's face on Friday not cited either. Seems to be setting a precedent that you can whack people straight in the face and it's not a problem, but tackle people (correctly) round the legs and you expect somebody to pore over every detail of it in slow mo.

Don't think that's true

1.1.8 Early Guilty Plea
A Player who has:
 been charged with an Offence of Grade A-C; and
 who has not been found guilty of any other charge of on field misconduct
before the Tribunal (including charges in the NRL), or by submitting a
previous Early Guilty Plea (including charges in the NRL), in the 12 months
preceding the date of the Match in which the alleged Offence took place;
and
 who has not been permanently sent from the field in a Match in the 12
months preceding the date of the Match (unless subsequently found not
guilty of such an offence). For the avoidance of doubt if an incident was
deemed Sending Off Sufficient by the Panel, the player involved is no
longer eligible to elect to make an Early Guilty Plea for 12 months from the
date of the match in which he was dismissed;
may elect to make an Early Guilty Plea by informing the RFL Operations department
of his intention to do so before 11.00 am on the day of any scheduled hearing. This
will result in the lower end of the suspension range for the Grade of Offence set out
in the Charge Letter being imposed (i.e. for a Grade B offence a one match
suspension will be imposed). The suspension takes effect from midnight the day
following the scheduled hearing the case would have been heard at had the player
not made an Early Guilty Plea.
A player making such an Early Guilty Plea will not be subject to any fine but will
forfeit the right to any hearing. For the avoidance of doubt the right to make an Early
Guilty Plea only applies to initial hearings and not to any appeal hearing.
For the avoidance of doubt if a Player has previously used an Early Guilty Plea the
date from which the 12 month period starts will be the date on which the previous
suspension started and not the date on which he entered the Early Guilty Plea.
In the event that the Panel receive information that an injury has been caused as a
result of an incident of On Field Misconduct, the Panel may elect to withdraw the
Early Guilty Plea option even if the Player would have been otherwise eligible for it.
In such cases, the matter shall be referred to the Operational Rules Tribunal who
may consider such injury as an aggravating factor.

That is true, your early guilty plea is a reward for good behaviour if you like, once you get a ban you can't then use the EGP next time as you haven't got any credit for good behaviour for the next year so using it first up really is a no brainer.

That's not to say watts deserved a ban as I've not seen the incident myself

Only if you're found guilty though. the EGP is still available to you if you've not been found guilt of any offence in the previous 12 months

apparently the wigan team are allowed to submit a late guilty plea as it matches with most of their tackles