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No one is going to argue that David Shillington shouldn’t have been sent off for trying to smash Aaron Woods face in with his forehead. You simply can’t head butt another player, no matter how richly they deserve it.
That Aaron Woods repeatedly slapped a prone and defenceless Shillington on the head, all the while giving him a joyous earful about how he just lost his side the game, is just fine in the NRL.
As we know, you can’t act like a jerk when playing tennis or the whole country will turn on you. In cricket you can sledge a bit but you can’t actually manhandle your opponents.
Rugby league is different though. You can get right up your opponent and slap them hard on the head or back while you are doing it. In this great game we in fact celebrate obnoxious bullying behaviour. Justin Hodges and Michael Ennis – for example – are revered by teammates and fans for their ability to get under the skin of opponents.
So it doesn’t matter if players behave like complete, giant turds, you cannot hit them and you certainly can’t head butt them. It doesn’t matter how much they’ve provoked you, or how much they desperately deserve to be smashed, you can under no circumstances use your forehead to try to achieve that end.
Still, it does occur to me that perhaps when players do something that is deliberately inflammatory – such as Woods’ repeatedly slapping Shillington on the head, or Johnathan Thurston slapping Beau Scott in the face during a 2014 Origin match – that perhaps it should be penalised.
Alternatively, we can just continue to penalise the bloke who loses his cool because he was provoked and say that he should have ignored their niggling.
If you continually act like a provocative tool then getting laid out is sometimes the best way to be taught some manners. But I guess I’m old school.
No head butting, David! Bad David! Bad!
You can get sent off but it’s almost impossible to get sin binned
The Shillington send-off was the first dismissal since Kade Snowden in 2013. However, what was more remarkable was that in a game with 17 penalties in it – nine by the Wests Tigers, eight by the Raiders – not one was considered to be a foul professional enough to be worthy of a sin binning.
This is in spite of all but four being for exactly the same offence – interference in the play the ball.
Section 15 of the laws of the game of rugby league deals with player misconduct. It states that a player is guilty of misconduct if he repeatedly and deliberately breaks the laws of the game. A player guilty of misconduct can be sin binned.
Further, Section 16 of the rules states that “The referee must enforce the laws of the game and may impose penalties for any deliberate breach of the laws.” It the goes on to say that the ref has the authority to issue a caution to an entire team.
How is it then right that a side could give away eight penalties for the same offence and not have a player sin binned? in one 90-second period the Tigers conceded three consecutive penalties for play-the-ball infringements – two by Kyle Lovett, one By Mitchell Moses – and there was no sin binning.
Lovett wasn’t the only dual play-the-ball offender on the night either – Aaron Woods conceded two, so did Jessie Sue. And so did David Shillington.
However, as we’ve discussed many times before, sin bins are as rare as an attractive comb over.
Here are all of the sin binnings so far for season 2015:
| David Fa’alogo | Newcastle | Round 1 |
| Ryan James | Gold Coast | Round 1 |
| Sosaia Feki | Cronulla | Round 1 |
| Jack Wighton | Canberra | Round 1 |
| Josh Dugan | St Geo-Ill | Round 3 |
| David Klemmer | Canterbury | Round 5 |
| Isaah Yeo | Penrith | Round 7 |
| Josh Reynolds | Canterbury | Round 15 |
| Martin Taupau | Wests Tigers | Round 20 |
As you can see the refs started the season sin-bin happy, but have calmed down considerably.
So far this season there have been 2077 penalties conceded, with an average of 13 per game. Only nine of those (0.43 per cent) have been deemed worthy of a sin binning. It’s clear that the officials are too scared to sin bin players. So why wouldn’t Lovett and Moses cheat as much as possible when defending their line? They’d be stupid not to. No one gets binned in the NRL.
It’s not that way in Super Rugby though. In the 125 games played in 2015, 91 yellow cards were handed out. In fact only 50 matches (40 per cent) did not feature a sin binning.
You cheat you take a seat. Let’s play football.
Dave has done his TV deal and now he can finally do other stuff
Dave Smith has secured the financial future of the NRL with his enormous TV rights deal.
Well done Dave. I especially like that I’ll be able to see all eight matches live. Although I suspect that there will be a sharp rise in the incidence of Friday sickies following Thursday night games.
Now I’d like you to honour your statement of June 2014 and get to work on putting meaningful salary cap concessions in place for juniors a club develops. If I see the likes of Dallin Watene-Zelezniak or Jack Wighton poached by clubs with big third-party deals because you took no action to help the clubs that developed them retain them then I will do my block.
I know you are a banker Dave, but the NRL isn’t just about money – at least it shouldn’t be. The smaller clubs must be given a chance. If they develop a star then they should get every chance to keep them. A 25 per cent concession for five nominated juniors and 10 per cent for a further five would certainly help that process.
Got a better idea Dave? I’m all ears.
The Warriors suck without Johnson
A few weeks ago I pointed out that the Warriors only real chance this year rested with Shaun Johnson. His bad injury has proved that assertion all too true.
Before the Warriors’ mercurial half got injured his side averaged 21 points scored and 21 points conceded per match. Since he has been out they have scored just 20 points in three games and conceded 80 to average 6.5 points scored a match and 26.5 conceded.
I’ll be surprised if they win another game this year.
Manly playing for food
Conversely, Manly have seemingly sprung to life since it was announced that Geoff Toovey was on his way out, along with 16 players. However, they had been gaining momentum for a little while before that.
While they won only three of their first 12 matches for the season, with an average match for and against of 14-22, they’ve won six of their last eight games with an average score line of 27.5 to 15.75.
I am still doubtful that their pack is good enough to truly mix it with the Roosters, Cowboys, Dragons and Dogs, but there is certainly no better incentive for a player to perform than needing to secure a new contract.
Needing to win at least three of their last four games they play the Raiders in Canberra, where the home side has a 16 per cent win rate, Parramatta, who have lost three of their last four, a Roosters side that they have beaten the last two times they’ve met, and the improving Cronulla.
The Sea Eagles could win all four to finish on 30 points.
Updated predicted finish
Once more I’ve gazed into my crystal ball to try and predict the final eight.
Here’s how I think it looks now:
1. Cowboys – 42 points
2. Roosters – 40 points
3. Broncos – 38 points
4. Sharks – 36 points
5. Bulldogs – 32 points
6. Rabbitohs – 30 points
7. Storm – 28 points
8. Dragons – 28 points
9. Raiders – 26 points
10. Sea Eagles – 26 points
11. Wests Tigers – 24 points
12. Panthers – 22 points
13. Warriors – 22 points
14. Eels – 20 points
15. Titans – 18 points
16. Knights – 16 points