Re: Dragon Bird Out for the Rest of the Season : Thu Sep 07, 2017 2:59 pm  

Acton' s nine matches were warranted, but his was increased on appeal whereas Bird's was reduced. That's what is inconsistent.

Re: Dragon Bird Out for the Rest of the Season : Thu Sep 07, 2017 3:09 pm  

Living The Dream wrote:

Makes Manu's 10 game ban seem even more ridiculous. Can't remember who were we playing that day ?

That was for kicking it off again after been sent off.I was right in front of the original tackle and it seemed totally innocuous.

Re: Dragon Bird Out for the Rest of the Season : Thu Sep 07, 2017 3:31 pm  

mr t hall wrote:

Hadn't realised Jessie Ventura was a Leyther !

Well, Wikipedia reckons he's done just about everything else in his career. However, on checking I don't think he was awarded a heritage number, for having represented the first team. Maybe he just played for the reserves?

Re: Dragon Bird Out for the Rest of the Season : Thu Sep 07, 2017 5:01 pm  

Alan wrote:

Acton was an idiot and I fully agree that his action was highly dangerous. Acton maintains that he knew that Bird wasn't badly injured, but of course he would say that!

My point is that nine matches may have been fair punishment, or not - but to increase it on appeal? Could Bird's awful tackle on Ben Heaton, not have left him paralysed? And do you feel that four matches, then reduced to three, was a reasonable punishment? How do you reckon Bird's "tackle" compared with Acton's stupidity? I'd have said that, if Acton's 'crime' was worth eleven matches, setting a benchmark for players with 'previous', then Bird's was worth more than three.

Without delving too far into paranoia, we also 'suffered' from the Tony Gigot farce this season. He quite rightly (IMO) was suspended for two years, for his astonishing reaction to a drug tester, only to have the ban, equally astonishingly, lifted during the week before we played Catalans. He went on to star in that game, almost as though he had been training with the team for weeks, rather than having been banned from all contact with them! Needless to say, the suspension was re-imposed, after we had played them! I wonder if his 're-appeal' will be heard before the MPG?

Bloody hell. If that we're Fax I'd be peeved a tad. Unbelievable.

Re: Dragon Bird Out for the Rest of the Season : Thu Sep 07, 2017 5:49 pm  

To be fair regarding the Manu incident, he got two 5 match bans IIRC, one for the original incident and the other for having a couple more goes afterwards. There was plenty of build-up in that and previous games that probably should have been dealt with differently, but the ban for the incident in isolation was probably correct.

Back to Greg Bird, whether 4 games, 5 or 6 or more is correct, the main injustice was that the ref failed to deal with it properly on the day. The ban confirms that a red card should have been shown rather than a yellow, and it's not exactly as if there was any subtlety in the incident that means that the officials (between them at least) shouldn't have had a clear view of what happened.