Interesting artical from Sydney Morning Herald last year with what's happened to Paulo
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More stuff to read
"What woud be the reason for getting him back? Does he fill a role we don't have filled?"
"No one gets a fair draw. Fair draw is playing everyone home and away. So it not anout fairness, it's about getting the least worst draw"
"Yeah, surely in magic round the home teams get to wet their beaks, otherwise they lose revenue..."
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Interesting article Browny. It seems to me the game has too many rule changes and things should be simple. How they charged Junior is pathetic and merely a cover up for the incompetence shown in the game to justify themselves.
But hang on this Wilson fella is claiming in the other blog that you can't use precedents in your defence. The match review committee view previous incidents of a similar nature to ensure consistency - it says that in this article. How on earth can you not use that as part of your defence when they are using as part of their decision making process to reach a verdict?
Ok, from reading that article Wayne Bennett holds the same view. How then do we make change happen? I think this was the perfect opportunity for the club to take a stand for the sake of all 16 clubs and the good of the game. I put my idea forward in the other blog to get the media involved. Not sure what are your thoughts, there's got to be a better way than just sit back and cop it.
By the time the quartet have logged on this morning, they’ve requested multiple medical reports from clubs about potential injuries to players. If they find there’s enough to sustain a charge against a player, then the medical report will come into play with regard to grading.
So Brimson has an injured shoulder and doesn't get taken off the field for a HIA by the independent doctor and the player himself says he has hit in the shoulder not the head so Yeah, Grade 2 high contact.
Campbell breaks Russell's ribs and punchers his lung with knees to the ribs trying to stop a try. NOTHING HAPPENS.
Dylan Brown breaks Hutchison's ribs and punchers his lung with knees trying to stop a try. 3 weeks suspension and the NRL go on a high tackle blitz that is still going on even though it wasn't a high tackle.
Holbrook was right after round one. The NRL do treat teams differently, it's just he got the teams wrong.
Well said Coach Jim.
This is why injury shouldn't play a part. They should judge purely on the incident itself and judge based on the danger the action of the player could of caused. For example NAS hit on Maka could of broken his jaw. It didn't so it barely raises an eyebrow even though it was deliberate, malicious and could easily been avoided by the player. Yet accidental contact where a player drops their height significantly where the player is injured like Tedesco does gets penalised heavier
Why shouldn't the injury play a part? If you drive down the road drunk and get pulled over by the cops, you lose your license and get a hefty fine. On the other hand, if you wipe out a mother and child crossing the road, you end up in prison for a long time. In real life the outcome of actions is taken into consideration, and it's the same in NRL and other sports, whether you like it or not.
Can't read it without the paywall. Can someone post the article ?
Theres a lot of advertising amongst it, so just skip over.
"It’s only an hour after daybreak and four old footballers are poring over a video which has been circulating in their WhatsApp group.
They’ve watched the clips over and over again, looking at bodies and limbs contorting in every direction, working out where the contact is, the force involved, and then finally deciding if the video is enough for the player to be in trouble.
2:13
Joey picks his State of Origin backrow
No room for Jake Trbojevic in Andrew Johns' hypothetical starting team for State of Origin.
But let’s not scare the integrity unit.
This is the inner workings of the NRL’s match review committee, a favourite punching bag of angry coaches, confused players and irate fans.
What they hell were they watching? How on earth did Latrell Mitchell get four weeks for that? Where did they pluck this hip drop tackle from? Did Josh Curran really get charged for a head clash? How soft do they want the game to become? Don’t they know he’s got a State of Origin game to play next week!
Last weekend the Herald was given exclusive access to the NRL’s match review process, from watching matches in real time to debating the merits of dozens of incidents arising from eight games.
NRL match review committee member Michael Hodgson watches a game in real time.CREDIT:COLE BENNETTS
Four mornings a week match review committee chair Michael Robertson, the former Canberra and Manly winger who scored a grand final hat-trick and has a busy day job as the chief executive of an apparel company, speaks to fellow panel members Michael Hodgson, Luke Patten and Anthony Quinn over Webex.
It’s usually at a time when footballers of yesteryear would be stumbling home after a night at Northies.
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But these guys risk popularity in their own households as they delay breakfast with their families to help keep the game clean.
You might not agree with them. Most have had scratched their head and thought, ‘how did they arrive at that?’ But watching how the MRC work gives a clear insight into how thorough their process is – and that they don’t always agree with each other.
By the time the quartet have logged on this morning, they’ve requested multiple medical reports from clubs about potential injuries to players. If they find there’s enough to sustain a charge against a player, then the medical report will come into play with regard to grading.
Each member is assigned to a game and flags incidents in the next day’s review, seeking opinions of his fellow reviewers. There’s debate, and plenty of it. They can instantly recall similar tackles to ones they’re assessing, and within seconds can watch incidents from previous years to help guide them.
The problem for the match review committee is also rugby league’s greatest strength: tribalism. If you’re a Tigers fan, it’s hard to look at the match review committee through anything other than a Tigers lens and so on.
When the Herald sat in on the review, the panel is interrogating a tackle from a match on Saturday night.
One panel member can’t see enough to lay a dangerous contact charge.
https://static.ffx.io/images/$zoom_0.424%2C$multiply_2.7195%2C$ratio_1.776846%2C$width_1059%2C$x_277%2C$y_0/t_crop_custom/q_62%2Cf_auto/19f6618e4646c1a7c6334ff2302ce8b25101dd5b 2x" media="(min-width: 1024px)" />https://static.ffx.io/images/$zoom_0.424%2C$multiply_1.4504%2C$ratio_1.776846%2C$width_1059%2C$x_277%2C$y_0/t_crop_custom/q_62%2Cf_auto/19f6618e4646c1a7c6334ff2302ce8b25101dd5b 2x" media="(min-width: 768px)" />Michael Hodgson watches a match for the NRL’s match review committee.CREDIT:COLE BENNETTS
“I don’t see [player] doing a helluva lot wrong here,” he says. “I don’t see him putting him in a dangerous position. He’s making a genuine attempt at a tackle. I just think this is OK. I don’t see a lot wrong with this.”
It’s quickly countered, while the replays keep rolling.
“He made forceful contact with a player in a vulnerable position,” says another. “We can’t use an injury to make it a charge, but if we deem his actions careless we can consider the injury. I’ve got this as a charge.”
Adds the next panel member: “Applying the code, I think we can support a grade one charge. The more we talk through it the more confident I am it ticks all the boxes to sustain a charge.”
But it doesn’t end there.
“I just don’t see enough for it to be a charge. I’m still below a charge, but I take everyone’s points on board.”
The panel often debate through differing views, says Robertson.
“That happens often,” he says . “There is difference in opinions a lot of the time.”
In just under an hour, the panel has wrapped up the matches from the previous night. The player is charged.
Hodgson started on the match review committee more than seven years ago. He would sit down in his lounge room with his Foxtel remote and would see what everyone else did. He would pause, rewind, play, stop, stare, over and over again, but he was always at the mercy of the TV match director.
One of the first games he was rostered to review was an early season match in Melbourne on a Monday night. Newcastle’s rangy red-headed back-rower, Alex McKinnon, carted the ball into the Storm defence before being lifted in a tackle.
Later, McKinnon would be diagnosed a quadriplegic.
https://static.ffx.io/images/$zoom_0.353%2C$multiply_2.7195%2C$ratio_1.776846%2C$width_1059%2C$x_0%2C$y_110/t_crop_custom/q_62%2Cf_auto/ace4c58a916c967df12f5eeffc6bde1cc6dcf369 2x" media="(min-width: 1024px)" />https://static.ffx.io/images/$zoom_0.353%2C$multiply_1.4504%2C$ratio_1.776846%2C$width_1059%2C$x_0%2C$y_110/t_crop_custom/q_62%2Cf_auto/ace4c58a916c967df12f5eeffc6bde1cc6dcf369 2x" media="(min-width: 768px)" />Alex McKinnon on the ground after the tragic tackle in 2014 in Melbourne.CREDIT:GETTY
Hodgson had to watch the tackle many times to help the panel decide how it should be handled. The matter was referred straight to the NRL judiciary, where Jordan McLean was found guilty of a grade two dangerous throw. He was suspended for seven matches, after McKinnon’s life-changing injury was taken into account.
Back in those days, the panel would make a phone call to Fox Sports on a Monday morning and ask for any extra angles to help them decide on a controversial incident. The tapes would be swiftly couriered across the Harbour Bridge.
On a cool autumn night in 2021, Hodgson is now sitting in the NRL’s modern day central command centre in inner-city Eveleigh.
Todd Greenberg’s facility was derided in its early days because it cost $2 million and punters still thought it stuffed up more than it should, but nothing which happens on an NRL field these days escapes Big Brother in the Bunker.
https://static.ffx.io/images/$zoom_0.336%2C$multiply_2.7195%2C$ratio_1.776846%2C$width_1059%2C$x_0%2C$y_85/t_crop_custom/q_62%2Cf_auto/d88ea2bfe33464e868ce1b55a56b1424523c7b63 2x" media="(min-width: 1024px)" />https://static.ffx.io/images/$zoom_0.336%2C$multiply_1.4504%2C$ratio_1.776846%2C$width_1059%2C$x_0%2C$y_85/t_crop_custom/q_62%2Cf_auto/d88ea2bfe33464e868ce1b55a56b1424523c7b63 2x" media="(min-width: 768px)" />The NRL’s incident surveillance room.CREDIT:COLE BENNETTS
It’s not only used for on-field rulings and to spot potential in-game concussions, but it also has space for match review officials to “tag” potential foul play in a little room which misses nothing.
Hodgson’s old Foxtel remote is replaced by a can of Red Bull (no doubt to help him on the late night drive home to Newcastle), and he has so many controls it’s hard to know which one does what. Instead of relying on the broadcaster to show him what he needs to see, these days he has 11 different camera angles to scrutinise every raised knee, hair pull, swinging arm, grapple tackle, hip drop, shoulder charge or whatever the latest fad is.
There are 17 different pieces of white paper stuck on the wall to his left, each with a detailed breakdown of what constitutes a charge under the NRL’s judiciary code. Hodgson barely looks at them because he’s done this so many times before. He’s talking through the different grips and tackling techniques which he’s mastered identifying.
Having watched the match, it’s easy to assume he might as well put the feet up. There is little spite in the game, and certainly nothing which will keep sports editors grinning about back page fodder for days.
But by the time 15 minutes has elapsed, Hodgson has already found four incidents he’s marked in a central log.
For each one, he stops his feed, rewinds it and watches it numerous times from all manner of angles before the incident is cut up by an assistant and sent to the other members of the match review panel almost instantaneously.
Is it usual for so many tackles and collisions to be under the microscope each game?
“We might usually tag anywhere between 16 to 20 incidents in a game,” Hodgson says. “I’ve got to be honest, some things look quite innocuous sometimes. You speak to people and they say, ‘well, what was in that?‘
“And you wouldn’t say we do this for job satisfaction. For us, it’s governance of the game and player welfare and safety. That makes me want to do it. We can be perceived differently, and I understand that. To follow these trends in terms of wrestling and issuing concerning acts that can potentially stop an injury, I find that really rewarding.”
By the end of the game, Hodgson has identified 15 different incidents to be sent to his fellow MRC members.
The next morning they issue only one charge from the match.
‘Why aren’t the match review committee accountable?’
The day after Mitchell was slugged with a four-game ban for a stray arm which collected Tigers winger David Nofoaluma in the head, his South Sydney coach Wayne Bennett went nuclear.
https://static.ffx.io/images/$zoom_0.667%2C$multiply_3.2804%2C$ratio_1%2C$width_378%2C$x_241%2C$y_0/t_crop_custom/q_62%2Cf_auto/8108c6e9de98b6d1bd2736d6a73883a973749400 2x" media="(min-width: 1024px)" />https://static.ffx.io/images/$zoom_0.667%2C$multiply_2.7302%2C$ratio_1%2C$width_378%2C$x_241%2C$y_0/t_crop_custom/q_62%2Cf_auto/8108c6e9de98b6d1bd2736d6a73883a973749400 2x" media="(min-width: 768px)" />Tigers winger David Nofoaluma is adamant Latrell Mitchell’s four-week suspension was completely warranted.
Mitchell was charged three times from the one match, including for an innocuous looking slide into Luke Garner after he scored a try. Before Mitchell fronted the judiciary, the Rabbitohs had been quietly peddling images of other incidents out of the weekend which they thought were worse than the Garner collision.
They might have had a point.
But Bennett was furious the Nofoaluma contact cost him his most mercurial player for a month, and thundered to the Herald: “We’re all accountable. I’m accountable. Players are accountable. Referees are. Why aren’t the match review committee?”
It was only the start of the caning.
https://static.ffx.io/images/$zoom_0.458%2C$multiply_2.709%2C$ratio_1.5%2C$width_756%2C$x_67%2C$y_0/t_crop_custom/q_62%2Cf_auto/399e0112a3afdd9097e7b7301895f8c96c3558e7 2x" media="(min-width: 1024px)" />https://static.ffx.io/images/$zoom_0.458%2C$multiply_1.8413%2C$ratio_1.5%2C$width_756%2C$x_67%2C$y_0/t_crop_custom/q_62%2Cf_auto/399e0112a3afdd9097e7b7301895f8c96c3558e7 2x" media="(min-width: 768px)" />Wayne Bennett said not one of his fullback’s three charges deserved a suspension in a passionate defence of his game breaker.CREDIT:GETTY IMAGES, NRL PHOTOS
Phil Gould claimed he was an astronaut if Mitchell deserved that suspension. The public stoning finished with the Perry Mason for NRL clubs, Nick Ghabar, calling for sweeping changes to the judiciary process.
The NRL had had enough.
Head of football Graham Annesley used more than half-an-hour of his weekly football briefing to launch into a spirited defence of the integrity and credentials of the match review committee members and judiciary panel.
He gave the impression it was hard to convince them to do a job that was about to become easy to walk away from.
“It’s not a job for everybody,” Annesley now says. “A lot of former players, once they’ve finished their on-field career, they don’t want to be in a position where they’re making decisions that adversely affect their former colleagues.
“One of the problems we have is the perception of the whole judicial process, from match review right through to hearing, is that there’s not a lot of understanding of the amount of detail which goes into reviewing matches, preparing charges and cases that might go to the judiciary.
“But this is not a tick-and-flick exercise. There is a lot of time and effort that goes into it. These guys are trying to be as consistent as possible and nothing escapes their attention.”
But should it only be former players who sit in judgment of their peers, rather than a wider cross section of representatives?
https://static.ffx.io/images/$zoom_0.136%2C$multiply_2.709%2C$ratio_1.5%2C$width_756%2C$x_0%2C$y_0/t_crop_custom/q_62%2Cf_auto/c46c847a36aa2c19bcf4670786cefd162d2fad16 2x" media="(min-width: 1024px)" />https://static.ffx.io/images/$zoom_0.136%2C$multiply_1.8413%2C$ratio_1.5%2C$width_756%2C$x_0%2C$y_0/t_crop_custom/q_62%2Cf_auto/c46c847a36aa2c19bcf4670786cefd162d2fad16 2x" media="(min-width: 768px)" />NRL head of football Graham Annesley defended the match review committee and judiciary members.CREDIT:NRL PHOTOS
“The environment is constantly changing,” Annesley says. “There’s new coaching methodologies that come into play that these guys have got to be aware of. That’s the whole logic behind using former players because they’ve been there.”
Mitchell is only spending four weeks on the sidelines because of his poor record and the fact he fought the charge at the judiciary and lost, adding another week to what is usually a two-game charge. Whether he should have been charged at all for that incident, few will agree on.
What is clear is the NRL won’t tolerate any form of contact with the head or neck, and its match review committee treat the judiciary code like The Bible.
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Asked about the Mitchell decision, Robertson says: “There was a long discussion in that one. I don’t take [the criticism] personally. I would like it if people went into the code, read it and understand what our decisions are based on. They’re the rules we stick to.
“I’ve told all the coaches and football managers there’s an open line if they’ve got any issues. Some take me up on it, and some don’t. They don’t necessarily agree with how we come to our decisions, but I’ll explain how we did.
“But this is not just four blokes jumping on the phone and saying,‘what do you reckon? Grade one?’ Then just move onto the next one. We don’t just pluck these charges out of the air.
“I would rather no one get suspended, but I’d much prefer a safer working environment be created so we don’t have an injury from foul play.”
Cheers mate . 2 Canterbury players and team mates on the MRC is a bit of a worry.