Mark O'Meley arrived in this country with a pretty fearsome reputation built up over the past 10 years in the NRL as an enforcer. He even came clutching an alledged hit-list. Yet he has had no trouble with our referees since his arrival.
The reason is that he plays the game as hard as he can and as close to the edge as he can, but doesnt overstep it.
Lauaki on the other hand gets involved in so much daft avoidable stuff it is only natural that the refs will be keeping an extra close eye on him.

That may be the case, but they should at least let him get on the pitch and get involved in the game before they start to pick on him.

See what you are saying but Hames game and Marks game are totally different, and lets go back three years ago when Mark was punching everything above grass he had his own parking spot at the officiary in Brisbane!!! he was there so often .
Hame is 4 years younger than Omeley and with less experience than Mark so he is also on a learing curve and he is learning too day by day but his game is to smash people either with or without the ball, and despite w few youtoobe vids that is not omeleys game now, his game now is a brick wall in defence and direct drives going forward, where as Hame is a smasher on defence and the jinking george dancing feet style in offence!!

as for his hit list , thats laughable that any pro would have such a thing and only made for good reading on here, albeit he does not like Leon one bit !!

Maybe Expro meant Terry and not Clint. Both bad eggs thoughicon_smile.gif

Trouble with Lauiki was (and this is from limitted ky matches and the derby) that if an oppo niggled him he would come up swinging. I think it was his first match for you against the Bulls, he'd only been on 5 mins and had 3 minor skirmishes and only by luck of the call Glenn Morrison sent off and he stayed on. Other teams have spotted this being his achiles heel and will target it, as was seen in the derby.

He will be on a learning curve and maybe the ref warning him (albeit a bit harshly) will help him progress down this curve. If as you say he is a smasher then thats what he needs to do, legally and he will only get pats on the back. If the other player takes exception, laugh at him, it means the smash worked. His 'reputation' will soon go away once the refs realise he's got the message.

good post