Flower Charged

[cpwigan]

It was scummy BM. Plenty scummy plays happening more and more in SL. Players think they can get away with it. Clean the game up. make it faster, reduce intechnages and you will see a far better game.

[josie andrews]

Only one person will ever know the truth but IMO Benny knew exactly what he was doing, it was deliberate in the sennse he knew he would take the kicker out, and high. I do not think he wanted to break the players jaw Etc but that could have easily happened.

It was unprovoked whereas OT had some provocation.

Sorry CPW but I feel that IF Ben wanted to seriously hurt Patton then he would have done so. Not his "style" for snidely attacks nor attempted thuggery. Ben strikes me as the sort of player that if he wanted to hit you - then he would and bugger the consequencies

IMO that means this was nothing more than down to poor/lazy technique

I agree with you BM.

[butt monkey]

It was scummy BM. Plenty scummy plays happening more and more in SL. Players think they can get away with it. Clean the game up. make it faster, reduce intechnages and you will see a far better game.

And we can stand at that point by arguing is the glass half full or half empty.

I have seen some thuggery on the field but it is no where near as bad as it used to be. More injuries appear to be caused by the introduction of wrestling techniques than actual blatant high shots or mistimed tackles. Gone are the shoulder charges that rattled unsuspecting opponents.

If Flower wanted to really hurt the Wire player he would have used far more force than he did do and also more directly. The whole thing just looked lazy by him.

Lockers "tackle" on Annakin was far worse yet no one calls him "scummy"

I do agree about reducing the number of interchanges.

I would also remove the ball stealing penalties. It would require greater ball security by the ball carrier and stop some players/teams obtaining cheap yardage by constantly cheating the referee.

Clean up the ptb? Unless the referee has a timer that beeps to give absolute consistency the allegations of favouritism will always be alleged (especially by visiting teams).

Perhaps no more than three players allowed into any tackle? Who knows or can say but at the moment teams have an idea how weak or strong referees patrol certain aspects of the game and use that to manipulate his weaknesses to their own game plan

[cpwigan]

Whem you start raising an elbow/forearm it is scummy whomever.

[Southern Softy]

This all seems to have highlighted one of the major problems with disciplinary in SL (and for the record, I thought Flower's 'charge-down' fell short of malice but a bit worse than clumsy and a 2-match ban was about right).
It does seem that allowances are made by referees and administrators for players who are 'close to the edge' or as we call then - thugs. Ben Westwood, Ashton Sime, Ryan Bailey fall into that category and the wind-up merchants like Ferres and McCarty-Scarsbrook all seem to get away with offences that occasional offenders - and that would include Ben Flower - find they are banned for.
I'm not targeting Warrington particularly because I'm sure some brief thought could find others who come into the category but until we have some consistency and the sin-bin is used for repeated foul play during a match, then clubs and not just us, will always feel they are being badly treated.

[TrueBlueWarrior]

It was wrong!
It looked bad!
Elbows are dangerous!
No place at all for them!
He did it on purpose!
It was clumsy!
Not malicious!
Could have been worse!

For me it starts awful but when you actually look through it, it wasn't that bad.

Sending off was fine!

2 games is fine!!

[DaveO]

There is as much politics in appealing as there is any thought of if he would get off.

I think Wigan must have genuinely thought it was a clumsy attempt, not intentional and that given others have not even been sent off for clearly deliberate attacks it was worth a go a) for that reason but b) to also get the point across that you will appeal what you see as incorrect decisions.

Staying quiet serves no purpose and won't do anything to improve the inconsistency.

But pick your battles more carefully though,it was clumsy but that's beside the point the offence has be admitted,pick a battle that has say a 60% chance of success rather than this one,which bar a few inches could have done serious damage.

Yes we all want consistency but we won't get it,you can expect a level of consistency of course and I think it was a fair sentence,if you keep appealing then it seems to me you will end up less likely of winning a marginal one down the road,and let's be fair here if Wigan had a full compliment of props they would have opted to say nowt and give a Flower the rest.

I was pleased Wigan appealed partly because for a while after IL took over I seem to recall we never said boo to a goose on the disciplinary front just accepting whatever decision was handed down.

I also think they must have thought they were in with a chance regardless of how many props we have available. Even if the club felt they needed him sooner than for a potential GF if they felt there was no chance I doubt they would have bothered.

[Wigan_forever1985]

Like in the grand final I think benny here has made it hard for himself not to be banned by his second action

In the final I think most were agreed it was the second punch sealed the fate of the long ban

Here the first part even the raised elbow may have been overlooked but he extends his arm after contact which makes it look worse if he kept his arm in the same place or pulle it in he may have got away with it

That said I still think the ban was correct

[Firestarter]

It wasn't the worst ever but deserved two games IMO.
Be interesting to see if Watts gets a ban for the shoulder charge on Patton.

[cpwigan]

What worrys me is that post the GF send off, Benny was supposed to have had all this assistance in terms of 'his mind' and learned a hard less YET seemingly nothing amazing changed.

Any sane person can agree IMO whether deliberate or not Benny was reckless. More importantly IMO, if the RFL clamp down of foul play we will get a far better product! Faster, safer = more exciting.