Quote: secondstanza "There's a rule about leading with the elbow/forearm. Mickey Mac's height doesn't come into it just like say, Rob Burrow's doesn't. The arm raised into the tackle - elbow/forearm makes contact with the head. Incidents are dealt with on a case by case basis and you know they are so don't be facetious to suit your point. We saw head high tackles in the game get penalty only - Sean O'Loughlin rightly so gets a red for a clothesline last season.
The crux of it is he switches ball carrying arms and then raises. If he uses the ball carrying arm and tucks in, theres no issue. Also if he uses an open hand there's no issue. You can't accuse Watts of raising the forearm and it simply becomes a case of unfortunate head placement. There is an element of that but you can't argue with the fact that the arm is raise. It's not a fend - a fend is with an open hand, not a bent arm raised.
I don't for a second believe Watts intended what he did and it was more of an instinctive reaction MM flying out, but as we see time and time again; there has to be a duty of care at all times to opposing players. Players are put in dangerous positions all the time and they are punished for it, two players in as many weeks were sin-binned for it. They've massively clamped down on it.
I'd certainly expect the Wigan player to be off if it was the other way round and I mean that genuinely.'"
A fair post, but I just can't agree. Purely accidental imo, and similar to what you say, if it was a Wigan player I wouldn't have expected them to be punished either. It wasn't premeditated, he didn't run in leading with the elbow, it was a last second reaction to a hit that he saw coming really late.