Toby Flood cleared...

First topic message reminder :

... anyone surprised?

Anyone?



At least Cockers will be able to give it a rest this week.

Oh and Flood will be available for the 6N openers.

Breadvan wrote:

TJ wrote:We have discussed a number of these tip tackles in recent months. this one appears to be one of the worst if not the worst. Driven down and is head and neck took a lot of force.

tigers and England players appear to get lower sanctions following citings than other clubs and countries

Really? I think it's the least worst, definitely the softest. Flood didn't act alone like the others, ie Warburton, B Davies per se. Personally I thought he'd get a couple of weeks at least.

It was one of the softest i've seen, I did think that the citing commission would have a look at at though - and that he may get up to six weeks, being a Leicester and England player of course.

TJ wrote:Now how about you drop it? Its both wrong and tiresome.

I could ask you the same, but it'd be pointless.

I've watched it a couple of times, and my 2c.....

A yellow card at the time would have been enough, but I can see why it wasnt given. Thus, it had to go to a citing to see whether it was actually worthy of punishment. They decided no because although Flood lifted Goode, there was additional players joining the tackle (Percival can clearly be seen influencing the tackle heavily). In slow-motion it does look like Flood then drives Goode into the ground onto his neck/head. Thing with this is, he hasn't tipped Goode by himself and hes following through with a strong tackle, its unfortunate Goode landed on his neck/head.

I understand why Floods been cleared and I'm not too bothered by that, I think they could have given him a low end ban (probably shortened for good behaviour to 1-2 weeks as PSW has said) for the following reasons:

1. it has ended up being a dangerous tackle that he initiated
2. He escaped onfield punishment and in my eyes it was worthy of onfield punishment (yellow, not red)
3. His moustache from November deserved to get him banned on its own


Someone said that its probably the inconsistencies in on-field decisions and subsequent bans for tip/dangerous tackles thats really grinding peoples gears. Id agree with that on the whole.

There will always be inconsistencies to some because they can't differentiate between similar but different events. It's similar to people complaining about referee inconsistencies when they penalise their team for going off their feet and they don't penalise the other team for handling in the ruck.

There will also be inconsistencies by refs because with 30 great big hulks running around they have a limited/once only view of things. I suggest that in this case none of the officials had any clear view, rather than saw it and decided it was OK.

The irritating thing is citing shuld get rid of the inconsistencies. It doesn't seem to however.

I did go looking a little for pro england bias in citing / banning - and one incident I had thought where Ashton got off lightly and did not miss important internationals was actually heineken cup! so not an RFU disciplinary.

TJ wrote:The irritating thing is citing shuld get rid of the inconsistencies. It doesn't seem to however.

I did go looking a little for pro england bias in citing / banning - and one incident I had thought where Ashton got off lightly and did not miss important internationals was actually heineken cup! so not an RFU disciplinary.

Maybe that's because your opinion isn't a universal truth. Therefore what happens doesn't always fit it.

Typical English arrogance

HammerofThunor wrote:

Typical English arrogance

Justice has been done.

It was a slightly clumsy challenge, worthy of pen or at worst a yellow. Talk of a weeks/months ban is ridiculous really.

Perhaps the posters commenting advocating such a lengthy ban should go and watch another sport as I think Rugby might be a little too rough for them.