The Rugby Football League has made the right call in handing Wigan prop Ben Flower a 13-game suspension for his two punch attack on Lance Hohaia in the Super League grand final.
The six-month ban is heavy but a fair one, reflecting the seriousness of the crime but also taking into account similar punching offences from other players.
Flower’s suspension is the second longest in Super League history after Wigan hooker Terry Newton was rubbed out for seven months in 2005 for knocking out Lee Gilmour and breaking the cheekbone of Sean Long in a game again
The 26-year front-rower’s blows were shocking and the footage went round the world.
It’s not the image Super League, or rugby league in general, wants portrayed.
Strangely enough it has got people talking about the game, for better or worse. Footy does know how to throw out a controversy, from players sticking fingers up arses to biting another player’s genitals to the ‘bubbler’.
It is rarely boring.
But Flower’s attack is of course not want rugby league wants to be known for or seen to condone.
The Welshman was given the harshest grading, F, which meant anything from an eight game ban to more. Thirteen games means his misses the World Club Challenge, two pre-season games and 10 Super League matches.
It’s a fair whack. He’ll be out of action until April 14.
To me, that’s about right.
Flower has to live with the consequences of his actions, Hohaia has accepted his apology and he’ll always be linked to that incident for the rest of his life. It won’t be easy.
Talk of police action, banning him for a year or for life even is too much for me. Getting the police involved in things like this that happen in the professional sporting arena is wrong. It opens a huge can of worms.
Yes it was pretty terrible, but players have been punching one another for ages. It’s not like it is the first time one player has dropped another with a blow, or resorted to foul play to hurt an opponent.
Hohaia copped a one-match ban for elbowing Flower, and after that you could somewhat understand Flower’s response of lashing out. The second punch UFC-style though is completely indefensible. The Kiwi is lying on the turf, probably concussed, and is defenceless. That was a grub act.
Not that this defends it, but after watching the footage over and over again, you can everything happened pretty fast. The two punches are delivered in about two to three seconds.
Flower would not have been able to tell that Hohaia was out of it after the first shot landed. However, brain explosions like that are unacceptable.
Just like eye gouging, biting, the squirrel grip and the like, nobody wants to see that. That’s pre-historic stuff that doesn’t belong in the modern game.
A six month suspension sends that message.
Follow John Davidson on Twitter @johnnyddavidson
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