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Pieman wrote:
It wouldnt be instead of the suspension, it would go with it. The side and player should be punished on the day and after.
I agree.
You've misinterpreted what I said. What I was suggesting was that if Joe O instead of doing a spear tackle had tackled a player after a quick tap when he was offside, then the 10 minute sin bin could have had a far bigger impact on the Broncos season than the eventual 3 week suspension. Look at the Raiders game for example. It was a must win game for Canberra, and at 12 points up Papalii gets sin-binned. Now in most cases that would result in their opponents, who were in 3rd place on the ladder compared to Canberra's 10th place, putting on somewhere between 6 and 18 points between the 55th & 65th minute. Absolutely changes the Raiders season if that happens (yes I'm fully aware that 2 passes after that incident Bakuya drops the ball and the only time the Sharks touch the ball again until Papalii comes back on is at kickoffs and a line drop out, but geez, that is rarity that it happens), and probably moreso than the 2 week suspension he got before this game when they could replace him with someone like Dave Taylor.
That's crazy. Surely an illegal act that puts a player in physical danger should punish a team more than making a tackle when offside, or back chatting a ref.
And I'm not saying Papalii shouldn't have been sin-binned either. I'd love a rule where a player gets 5 or 10 minutes sin bin for a professional foul, and 5 or 10 minutes for a significant dangerous foul such as a bad high tackle or a spear tackle. Not every high tackle needs a sin-bin. We need to trust our refs (including the video ref) enough to decide whether a tackle deserves something more than a penalty. I understand why refs don't want to use the send off now, and to be an honest, there is already the situation where a send off in the second minute is penalised more than a send off in the 62nd minute even if they are for identical actions. That's not really fair either. Having a 5-10 minute sin bin would make that an equal penalty, unless it happens in the last 10 minutes. Even if for dangerous acts sin binned players were allowed to return to the field if the opposition scores while they are in the sin bin, that'd be an improvement to the current situation. I wouldn't like that for professional foul sin-bins though, because those are done directly to stop points anyway.
And another thing. Can anyone explain what the purpose of putting someone on report does other than provide a free interchange (which they already get if they need to go off for HIA)? The MRC allegedly goes through every match in full detail the next day, so the report is not needed for that.
