The NRL are right on Tony Williams charge

Agreed 100%. Unintentional, careless, no malice, didn't mean to, poor discipline, poor technique - these are not acceptable excuses. Far too often players try to hide behind these excuses when they had every intention to deliberately hurt their opponent. What if De Grois had broken his neck & ended up in a wheelchair? Guys need to understand that they can still be tough, but they have to play within the rules. For everyone's safety.

i think the only way to make it fair on all players is to fix the grading its all over the place i believe the farah tackle was just as bad so why the short sentence? there is to much confusion , make it one penalty for all spear type tackles

:) It is hard not to notice. Like them keeping all these players under the cap again. Will be a good laugh shortly, hey Mals.

I don't doubt that the match review commitee and the judicary could be done with alot more transperancy. In the Dragons game alone there were multiple tackles that did not receive charge that should have. But the tackle by Williams in my opinion, and it would seem in the opinion of many, is FAR worse than the one by Robbie Farah and the grading was acceptable to me. If I look at other recent bad tackles, Dave Taylor got five weeks for his last year and the year before Glenn Stewart got 5 weeks (i think) for his cheap late shot on Anasta. To me this tackle was the worse than both of these and probably the most ordinary and horrific thing i have seen on a field since Danny Williams. He could have thrown him to the ground before he got him to horizontal, but when on with it and never let him go and it was luck, not good management that De Gois went beyond three sixty and didn't break his neck.

The Williams tackle was worse than Farah's but not 3 time worse. Hornby landed in a worse position than De Gois and to me it looked like he went on with the tackle and drove Hornby into the ground. Williams deserved seven weeks. Farah was lucky to only get two, it was an ugly tackle. Malice doesn't come into it - if you lift someone you run the risk of it turning into a spear tackle and if that happens you should spend a long time on the sidelines because of the potentially catastrophic outcome. Toovey's call for transparency is a great one. The match review committee and judiciary could actually make life easier for themselves if they had set criteria to determine the grading. For spear tackles something like, "hand between the legs + beyond horizontal + landed on his shoulder + went on with the tackle = Grade 4". This sets clear expectations and would take a lot of the heat out of the grading process.

You are a hoax BA Sports. IF my Aunty balls she would be my uncle.

B.A Sports it would appear you have an issue with Manly so perhaps you should sit out the issue. I have no problems with the Grading for Tony Williams tackle and think the punishment fits the crime. My issue is with the fact that if Tony Williams had made that tackle on Hornby instead of Farah, with force etc all being equal, would it still be a Grade 2? Of course not! The Judiciary guidelines (are there any?) are too subjective and from a fan's perspective it appears that they simply play rock-scissor-paper to come up with a Grading. A player's past, size etc should have no bearing on the Grading. Those subjective guidelines can come into it later when adding loading. But it is clear that they are involved from the outset and Toovey is right in asking for more transparency. Right now the Match Review Committee are a law unto themselves.

4 weeks max for me. When you look at it in replay it was not so bad im surprised manly got no bio mechanic expert in. He did not land on his head. The frank pritchard and robbie farad suspensions were much worse. And to think Brett stewart only got from memory 1-2 weeks last year for the big all in fight. 7 weeks too harsh. But i do believe the judiciary has to be firm as mark geyer pointed out this week. The players have to be role models to kids. But also some calm and not go over the top. It is a contact sport but before one gives out huge suspensions such as this they should think about the damage it does to the player's reputation and how it impacts his contract, so they should not go over the top with suspensions. On this one they defiantly got it wrong i would of given 2-4 weeks max.

Yeah Oikee, you are 100% right , He should have also faced charges for trying to rip the other guys head off. I think a few years ago Cam Smith got a few games suspension for a similar tackle and there was a huge outcry of 'SHAME' . That tackle didn't look half as aggressive as this one, yet, not one word has been said about it! Manly certainly create a little controversy in their games... lol

You just can't have tackles like that in the game. It was ugly, dangerous and unacceptable. Malice or no malice, you need to heavily penalise such incidents.

Something I'm noticing a lot of recently is an overwhelming number of comments from NRL players and coaches that are: - Feigning stupidity/ignorance/inability to understand simple comments - Teenage girl levels of passive aggression - Implications that if anyone was to disagree, they'd be directly advocating a soft, watered down version of the game we love. Am I the only one? Maybe it's become acceptable in the wake of the Storm player's watertight defense of "Duuurrrrr. Me not know what contract. Me play football, scratch X on paper when naughty man ask." when under fire for their role in the salary cap rort - but I think it's really pissweak. Just come out and say what you mean instead of something like " Oh, well. It's not like Tony wanted to play 7 weeks of football anyway, he's got better things to do, like building childrens hospitals and making shoes for orphans. We're just disappointed that the NRL has turned its back on the time honoured tradition of gentle giants accidentally bashing spines against the nearest hard surface. Jack Gibson would be spinning in his grave if he had lived to see what this once proud man's sport has become." The only valid point Toovey raised was the notion of full transparency in the decision, but I suspect they have to keep a lid on the exact criteria so it doesn't come back to bite them next time Jarryd Hayne and Billy Slater take it in turns to put dog shots on each other a week out from Origin.

No its not! De Gois was inches from bleeding through his eyes (ie his spine touching his skull). The Farah tackle, while approaching dangerous had no where near the force, not to mention the angle to cause the sort of damage that could have been done by WIlliams reckless tackle. Mals you are clearly a Manly fan (hence the complaining nature), so maybe you should sit out on this issue..

Mals, I think that says more about how lucky Farah was to only get two weeks...

'Toovey has been hanging around Des too long.' Was thinking the same thing myself, whinge, whinge, moan, moan, everyone hates us, everyone's against us, it's all a big conspiracy. He hasn't been working with Meninga so he must have gotten it from Des's playbook!

Ok Luke let's take the loading argument out of the equation here. If Williams like Farrah had no loading the judiciary is saying Williams flip tackle is 250% worse (5 weeks compared to 2 weeks) than Farrah's spear tackle. This is clearly ridiculous!

Luke, I don't often agree with Geoff Toovey, but his call for more transparency around how a grading was reached has merit. Toovey's comment that you don't get to find out how they came up with the grading until you actually get into the judiciary room seems rather archaic. I know the AFL detail all elements in how they arrive at a grading and charge at the initial point of laying the charge. I do agree that the they got the charge right, but I don't think it would hurt anyone by having more transparency in how charges are formed..

Its in the MAnly culture to complain about every decision. It is a bullying tactic. You watch a Manly game and Jamie Lyon will go up to the referee the first time MAnly are penalised in every game. It doesn't matter if the penalty comes in the third or 33rd minute, he goes up. Just to bully and complain. You watch every time Maanly are penalised, at all th eplayers throwing their hands in the air. Thats on the field. Off the field we have seen them complain about every punishment handed out, and most of us recognise that where there is smoke there is fire and there have been countless issues and allegations against Manly players in recent years which the NRL has not got invovled in when they probably should have. The Williams tackle and Farrah tackles are not even close. Park their records, Farah doesnt' go on with the tackle, Williams does. There was malice in that tackle. Just because he is a softly spoken guy, doesn't make him sweet and innocent.

Ok Oikee, put your tertiary qualifications & resume up on the Roar & we'll compare it to Geoff Toovey's. Geoff isn't guilty of stupidity, he is going to argue his case for his player like any decent coach would do. Look at what Flanagan & Gallen said about the tackle in the media.

Your dealing with Toovey, please dont use Smart and Toovey in the same sentence. ;) Williams showed no remorse, he then went and tried to crusher the next guy he tackled. Better to rub him out now. If Taylor got 5 weeks last year, Williams should think himself lucky he only got 7. Toovey has been hanging around Des too long. Now he is a whining baby. I also think the game has got to start fining these coaches again for making comments in public. It is getting out of hand again now. Time to nip it in the butt. They have got to learn to cop it sweet. let bloggers do the whinging.