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The NRL’s decision to suspend South Sydney’s Sam Burgess has left more than a few people up in arms, so to speak.
The facts of the matter are simple – as Burgess charged towards the defence, he braced for contact and his arm caught Bulldogs centre Josh Morris on the throat.
Burgess appears to have been charged and suspended for an act that goes unpunished hundreds of times over the course of a weekend.
Watching it live, I was a little surprised that it was even a penalty, let alone something worthy of being placed on report. Rugby league fans love their forwards to run straight, true and hard, and in a collision sport played at high speed, accidents like this happen regularly.
I’ll accept that in these situations, a penalty is usually a reasonable outcome and everyone will get on with things. There was no doubt about the high contact on Morris, who was clearly in some bother before he shook himself off and played out the game.
I was bemused, but not too bothered, that it was placed on report. Hell, everything gets placed on report these days. It’s a good way to ‘tag’ moments to look at later, away from the heat of battle.
Even when I heard that Burgess had been formally charged with ‘dangerous contact – head/neck (grade one)’, I wasn’t too concerned.
Usually when things like this get to the judiciary, they’re recognised for what they are – an accident born of no malicious intent, from an action that happens dozens of times in each game.
The immediate reaction of the players involved was also telling – there was not a lot of overt remonstration or squaring up from the nearby Bulldogs players, aside from Morris’ brother, Brett.
They all understand that these things can happen, it’s the nature of the game.
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So I was amazed when Mal Cochrane, Tony Puletua and Dallas Johnson – three former players who were no shrinking violets when it came to heavy impact – were convinced by the NRL’s argument that Burgess had “shirked” a player’s duty of care to avoid high contact.
The end result? A two-week holiday for an accident.
It obviously didn’t help Burgess that he had 85 carry over points in his pocket, which blew the suspension out to two games, but the 140 points that came with the dangerous contact charge was excessive.
In fact, the charge never should have been laid in the first place.
The suspension and its rationale send a confusing message when we take into consideration another couple of incidents from Round 4.
If the NRL’s argument is that Burgess failed in his duty of care to avoid high contact, why wasn’t Jason Taumalolo suspended for his destruction of Penrith’s Isaah Yeo on Thursday night?
The big Cowboy’s shoulder knocked Yeo out cold and ended his night. We all marvelled at the raw power and impact, and watched in glorious slow motion over and over again.
But according to the NRL, shouldn’t Taumalolo have been a tad more careful?
AAP Image/Julian Smith
Why didn’t Wests Tigers captain Russell Packer get a week off for raising his free arm into the side of Kaysa Pritchard’s head, knocking the Eels rake out and sending him to the bench for a head injury assessment?
Maybe Packer should have been more considerate of his opponent?
Pritchard and Yeo are no guarantees to take their places in the Panthers and Eels’ line-ups this week but, just like the Burgess impact, there was little to no remonstration and it was accepted as part of the game.
If Burgess’ suspension is the new standard, what should forwards do now? More half-hearted runs to the defensive line before turning their back for contact and pretending to look for an offload? Trotting forward before diving at the approaching tacklers to be ready to play the ball quickly?
That’s not what I want. That’s not what fans expect of their big boppers, and I dare say that Souths coach Anthony Seibold and the other 15 NRL coaches would guarantee a short career for a forward who didn’t charge the line hard.
Souths and Burgess have every right to be livid with the judiciary’s decision. All he did was his job.
Some things just make you shake your head
A long, long time ago I wrote about mind-shattering, coach-destroying and fan-enraging decisions from players at critical points of a game.
We had another doozy during the Canberra and Manly game on Saturday. It was a crucial game from the Raiders’ point of view to avoid a winless start to season 2018, but it quickly became a disaster.
After at one stage trailing a clinical Sea Eagles side by 22 points, the Raiders managed to steady themselves, wrestle back control and started to turn the tables.
With 20 minutes left, the gap had closed to 12 points and Manly were on the ropes – Canberra were coming hard and you sensed the men in green believed that a miracle was well and truly possible.
Enter Joey Leilua.
AAP Image/Mick Tsikas
As Manly prepared to restart play from the 20-metre line, Leilua thought it would be an excellent idea to knock the ball out of Matthew Wright’s hands.
There was no rhyme or reason to it, just something he thought the moment called for.
Leilua was penalised (miraculously avoiding being sin binned) and under a minute later, Wright scored up the other end of the field. Game over.
When you’re struggling, you need everything to go right. Canberra had worked their collective butts off to get into a position to steal an unlikely win and reboot their season.
In one swipe, Leilua threw all of his teammates’ hard work away.
Your guess is as good as mine as to what he was thinking. But actions like that are the type of soul-destroying idiocy that leaves coaches and fans speechless.