Northern Raider wrote: ↑September 11, 2019, 9:08 am
PigRickman wrote: ↑September 11, 2019, 8:08 am
The Rickman wrote: ↑September 11, 2019, 7:26 am
8 weeks is about 4 weeks light on IMO, but I think the fact the judiciary has been a complete farce this season in regards to eye gouges has absolutely played in Hudson’s favour
Next year the NRL needs to be a lot stricter on this, for everyone involved
1000% agree
The decision is defensible in context with how they’ve handled this all year long but boy changes for how they handle gouges is a must this off season
True they need to come down harder, particularly for repeat offenders. However if they do so it needs to be made clear that it will be the case from now on. You can't suddenly make an example of one player based on media reaction after letting other recent cases off so lightly.
They completely ballsed up the McGuire cases by relying on a player to make an "official complaint" for it to be classed as an eye gouge. They then took a harder stance in Burgess and gave him a somewhat light penalty of 9 weeks. That created a new standard which put them in a difficult position with Young. They couldn't hand down a tougher penalty for a lesser incident. So they took the easy path and gave him 1 week less than Burgess.
They now have to come out and publicly announced that future penalties will be harsher for repeat offenders. No excuses for any player after that.
I dont even think it can be in season tbh... the paramaters around gauging have been set in stone now for 2019.
However i think as part of the standard review post GF, they should be looking at beefing up the points on these charges significantly. As i said, id favor 2 grades of charge
Where the contact is deemed purposeful and/or avoidable to the eye region and where a clear gauging action takes place, it's a grade 2 and a base penalty of 2400 points
Where the contact is deemed purposeful and/or avoidable to the eye region and where no clear gauging action takes place, it's a grade 1 and a base penalty of 1200 points
Where contact is deemed accidental and/or unavoidable to the eye region and where no clear gauging action takes place, no charge is laid.
Basically, you put your hands up into the eye region of the player and make a gauging action, you're **** cooked.