Citings and match penalities...

Last night in the pub, the main topic of conversation was Horwill's citing.

After a debate, someone said the citings are too weighted to the player and not to penalising the team. What was meant by this, was a player could "take one for the team" and the team still win.

A suggestion was that any citings for foul play that wasnt picked up by and penalised at the time by the ref, should, if the player was found guilty of the offence, have a bearing on the game. So the suggestion was that number of weeks ban, should also be the number of points deducted from the teams score. So, as an example, if player Joe Bloggs was cited for an offence that wasnt penalised during the game and the panel found him guilty and banned him for 8 weeks, then Joe's team would also loose 8 points from thier score. That way, a close game could have the end result changed, or for a real nasty offence it may even impact the result of a more convincing win.

Now, I can see the logic in the argument, as if a real "nasty" offence had occured and was missed by the ref, then if the ref had seen and taken action the team could be a man down (or 2 or more). Which itself could have an impact on the result. However, if the team are running away with it and have a big margin, then the loss of a few points may not change the result, which if they where that good to run away, then being a man down may also not effect the end result.

BUT, although I see the logic in the argument, I dont think I'd be up for this, as whent he final whistle blows, that should be the result. Can you imagine, for example, winning a Grand Slam to have it taken away a few weeks later by a panel. Not sure that really works, and perhaps this is just one thing we have to live with.

Either way, it was an interesting debate... What's your thoughts...

Cant do anything retroactively to the score in the game. No one would stand for it. As far as other criteria goes you have to make deliberate offending as undesirable as possible. In leagues you could consider deducting points for persistent offending but its hard in one off internationals - you only really have leverage on the individual players in terms of lengths of bans.

It is an interesting topic.
My view is that citings should be carried forward on a match basis at or above the tier level at which the offence was committed.

e.g. If Dylan Hartley (a common benchmark) was banned from games at International level then he should not be banned from club games, but from International matches until his sentence was served.

Also as the offended team almost always never sees any benefit, the player (whichever side he currently plays for) should serve at least one of those suspension games against the side which he committed the offence.

So if (say) Hartley commits an offence against (say) Quins and subsequently gets transferred to (say) Gloucester, then the ban travels with both the man (Hartley) and the team offended against (Quins).

Portnoy's Complaint wrote:

So if (say) Hartley commits an offence against (say) Quins and subsequently gets transferred to (say) Gloucester, then the ban travels with both the man (Hartley) and the team offended against (Quins).

So let's say Hartley is an absolute genius that you want on the field for 100% of every game if you could - that kind of influencial player.  So Gloucester suffer a penalty because they buy Hartley and even if it takes weeks, they still must do without him specifically for a game against Quins...who will potentially benefit against Gloucester even though they've played against Hartley's old team the week before and saw that side allowed to put out a full strength side?

I think a player is a team's responsibility...and if he commits a serious offence when a member of that team then you can't slide that team's 'guilt' onto the shoulder of his new team?

SecretFly wrote:

Portnoy's Complaint wrote:

So if (say) Hartley commits an offence against (say) Quins and subsequently gets transferred to (say) Gloucester, then the ban travels with both the man (Hartley) and the team offended against (Quins).

So let's say Hartley is an absolute genius that you want on the field for 100% of every game if you could - that kind of influencial player.  So Gloucester suffer a penalty because they buy Hartley and even if it takes weeks, they still must do without him specifically for a game against Quins...who will potentially benefit against Gloucester even though they've played against Hartley's old team the week before and saw that side allowed to put out a full strength side?

I think a player is a team's responsibility...and if he commits a serious offence when a member of that team then you can't slide that team's 'guilt' onto the shoulder of his new team?

I didn't say that SF.

If Hartley got ten matches ban, one of those I contend will be served against Quins.

Glaws would have no penalty whatsoever except the Quins game (Caveat emptor).

Portnoy's Complaint wrote:

I didn't say that SF.

If Hartley got ten matches ban, one of those I contend will be served against Quins.

Glaws would have no penalty whatsoever.

If he's playing for Glaws and requires his one Quins match ban still (and he has only one match to go on the 10 match ban) then he'd have to wait for the specific match against Quins to complete his 10 match ban sequence?  Correct?  

That mean Quins would potentially and specifically benefit from Hartley's ban over Glaws (a team that had nothing to do with the initial ban) when his ban could have already been over at that point if it was a straight 10 match ban - one after the other.  

Glaws would accept he has to serve out his ban - and if that was his first one, two or three matches for them, so be it - but they'd find it hard to accept that they should particularly be made wait for a game against Quins for the final game ban to happen.  That's a specific penalty on them that is not timeline specific but opposition specific.

It's a specific ban on Hartley - not Glaws.

Caveat emptor.

Glaws wouldn't see it so is all I'm saying..thus the new rule would have opposition from teams that would think about these things.

At first I thought "ridiculous!" but I suppose it's pretty standard to deduct points from a team for a technical infringement (playing an unregistered player, too many foreigners, etc). Would it be so crazy to deduct points for foul play? I don't think point from the specific game (I don't the idea that a team should benefit from anothers' foul play, even though they may be harmed by it).

Otherwise I'd be getting the most annoying player in the world and hope someone hits him during the game.

this takes me back to the pub last night... the conversation went in a similar direction, re bans and club point deduction.... we couldnt agree then.. apart from agreeing in the end, that probably it wasnt a good idea and the current system, flawed as it may be is good enough...