i remember when long got injured for the season (knee ligaments) after an innocuous late challenge from Brandon Costin, people were calling for him to be banned for the season, which is obviously a total over-reaction.



Maybe Willie Mason should be banned for 4 years because Fielden certainly hasn't played since....

We could have used that excuse for most of the season but chose not to. On Friday night you were beaten by a side better than you on the day, why not just accept it and move on and save yourself any embarassment

with poor excuses'. BTW we had Martin, Drew and Blanch out injured I thought that I would let you know seeing as none of our fans want to enlighten you of that fact hth

A violent, pre-meditated, hard to prove I know, assault would be a circumstance when I would take into account the extent of a players injury and their length of time out of the game.

Not to mentioned the fact we lost our hooker after 20 minutes. We also didn't have a replacement hooker on the bench. A disruption like that at that stage of the game is a lot more disrupting than having that player out from the start.

Leeds must have been crap in those Grand Finals then.....

The rulebook does say that the 'effect of offending player's actions should be taken into consideration', aswell as any mitigating circumstances/ provocation and/ or the offending player's previous record. However it's never been if a player is out for 8 weeks due to injury then the offending player should also expect a similar time on the sidelines. Years back, Brandon Costin practically assaulted Sean Long, ironically breaking his jaw and putting him out for the rest of the season and the approaching Tri Nations, yet only received a 3 game ban.



By the by, any conirmation on this Stosic injury then?

IIRC Costin didn't "assault" long and nor did he break his jaw. I was a late tackle that damaged his knee ligaments when he fell awkwardly, as i alluded to in my example above

Ah my apologies I stand corrected, memory decieves in old age. However, my point still remains that it has never been the case that players should be banned for a similar amount of the time as the victim is put out of the game.

There should be a standard ban for whatever offence is committed, however, if, as JT says, the offence is proved to be premeditated, then the suspension should be supplemented with a percentage (30% for example) of how long the victim is out of the game with a minimum of 1 matches.



Using the above scale;



Victim to miss 8 weeks (8 games), offender to receives standard suspension + 2.4 (rounded up to 3) games on top.

Yes, fit to play this weekend and Cunningham is free to play this weekend. Seems the rfl already take into account the extent of injury and length of lay off!

Correct, they do:



Disciplinary panels shall undertake an assessment of the seriousness of the player’s conduct which constitutes the offending and categorise the offence as being at the lower end, mid range or top end of the scale of seriousness in order to identify the appropriate entry point for consideration of a particular incident(s).



(5.4)



Such assessment of the seriousness of the player’s conduct shall be determined by reference to the following features of offending:



........................



(5.4.4) The effect of the offending player’s actions on the victim (i.e. extent of injury, removal of injured player from game)