I agree, there have been some known thugs in the game over the years, some of whom have been punished regularly, some of whom get away with absolute murder. Joel is not a thug and any reputation he has is based on a few incidents he's been punished for, none of which have been like the kind of thing we've seen Adrian Morley and Jamie Peacock get away with in recent years and their careers have been pretty successful.
Joel's problem is he gives a fair few penalties away but although I've not seen the stats I'd say the vast majority are for holding down rather than for anything malicious. I actually think Wigan appealed Joel's ban more because it was inconclusive on the video than for any other reason but it looked much worse to me at the time but he had no chance in his appeal anyway because I genuinely believe that their mind was made up without even seeing the video. He totally doesn't deserve the reputation he has and neither does Sam but I'm genuinely convinced that different rules apply to us than for other clubs, we all know that if one of our players raised his knee in a tackle as Ryan Bailey did at Headingley there wouldn't be a cat in hells chance that they'd stay on the pitch or be found not guilty by the RFL on the grounds they were defending themselves. Can't remember if it was Joel or Sam who were up for stamping on someone despite the fact the 'stamp' was on the ground rather than making any contact with a player yet how many times did we see our players getting their hands or ankles stood on last season with no punishments given? Its a farce and the more examples I give the more I can instantly think of.
I hope Joel stops giving away penalties and I wasn't happy with what Joel did but let's not perpetuate the myth that he's some kind of psycho who's always making dangerous challenges etc because its simply not true. Barry Mac made the point a few weeks ago on Sky that in order to be a rugby player, especially a forward, you have to have the kind of fire in your belly that makes you do some stupid things from time to time but there are certain teams such as Warrington, Leeds, Hudds and more recently Hull (Lauaki etc) who will deliberately try to take players out of the game with cheap high shots, knees in the face, kicking out in tackles etc. We aren't that kind of team, I'd be the first to complain if we were, but the number of matches we seem to have players missing through suspensions compared to these teams would suggest the opposite. Proof if ever it was needed either that statistics lie, that some players are seen as untouchable and/or the powers that be have got it in for us.
We may never change the opinions of the RFL disciplinary committee but there are probably steps we can take to reduce the number of times our players have to appear there. I thought that playing in shirts less recognisable as Wigan ones would help but clearly I was wrong.
Gareth Thomas before his first game: "You wanna spend 10 mins getting smashed up by these guys..Big dudes here.."
