Digby banned for five weeks

Really? He missed a few of the RWC games because of a broken thumb, but that sort of freakish injury can happen to anyone playing Rugby. Other than that I only remember him missing a few games last season from being KO'd by Ita Vaea. Again, not really his fault. It's not like either of these injuries were as a result of his body breaking down from too much work or being fragile. I wouldn't say he's chronically injured in any case and definitely wouldn't put him in the same category as Rob Horne!

To be fair to the Sharks player (and I never usually side with Saffers) I think he was actually cursing himself for dropping the ball so close to the line and killing the chance to score. Seems like he wasn't even fazed by the tackle.

But they are not doing it. Each officer makes his sole judicial decision. It's only after they cock it up that any panel looks at it. Look at the Byrnes case yesterday:

. Sorry everybody about that 10 weeks ban. There wasn't evidence to support a breach.

SANZAR postponed and dicked around, held back the judgement and wished it would go away, but the three-man representative panel got it right. Should have been deliberating and collaborating on day one. What a cluster.

Of course rugby can learn from other sports. Many rugby teams have ex-rugby league players as their defensive or tackling coaches. Many have used Aussie rules and league players as their kicking coaches.

The Qld Reds have an CEO that is an ex-AFL man.

It would be silly not trying to make our sport better by utilising whatever skills we can find from others. (And no, I'm not talking about stopping scrums and lineouts).

They had the Reds coach on Boots and All last night. Good to see him taking this with ease and not like most Reds supporters on here. They showed the incident over and over again and some drewel on here not even worth to reply to. Precious in capital letters.

No probs. I am off this thread and out the door quickly!

You could be right. It is either that or an act. Either way, rugby has to get rid if these absurd decisions (like the original Byrnes suspension).

People who praise the "consistent" sentences approach, ala the NRL, need to be aware that all they are doing is shifting the power from the judiciary to the citing panel. With the NRL system, the most important factor in the process is what grade the player is cited at, which is often just as controversial. With the massive discount they have in the NRL for early guilty pleas, the deciding factor on how long someone gets is what the citing officer(s) think. In effect the judiciary is more of an appeals panel than a fact finder - someone going to the judiciary is effectively appealing the decision made by the citer.

The NRL way gives the appearance of consistency and transparency, but in actual fact is based on subjective findings every bit as much as the Super Rugby system.

He isn't as bad as Horne but he's had consistent shoulder trouble. He misses quite a bit of each season, is there anywhere you can look this stuff up?

The law, as it currently stands, says that if you pick a player up off his feet, and he falls in a dangerous manner in which his head/shoulders make contact with the ground before the rest of his body, then it needs to be a red card. No requirement anymore for a twist or a drive.

I'm a massive Reds fan and I played against Digby during my school days and there can be no doubt that according to the laws or rugby that this particular tackle deserves some form of disciplinary action - especially having been suspended for similar tackle/s in the past. The length of the ban I'm not sure about, perhaps 2-3 weeks at most would have been more appropriate. If it was his first offence then just the yellow on the day would have been fine.

However, Rene Ranger apparently only got 2 weeks for his deliberate attempt to cause bodily harm last week or whenever it was. That is a disgrace. He had plenty of time to pull out of his cheap shot but didn’t, and there was no way that his action could have stopped the try. It’s safe to say then that all he was trying to do was hurt the player after he had already scored. Now I love my big hits but it’s this kind of play that has to be punished most severely if you wan’t it to stop.

Further, I'd like to see some factual, scientific statistical analysis done to prove that tip tackles are indeed hugely dangerous (obviously they are very dangerous – I’m sure we’ve all heard of someone jumping into the shallow end of the pool) and how much so compared to scrums. In all my 26 years of life I have never seen anyone injured from a tip/spear tackle, however I've seen many injuries - some so severe they were career ending - from scrums (again obviously there are many more scrums).

If we are serious about limiting the chance of serious injury why the fuck do we still have scrums*.

I'm as much for scrums as the next bloke but just pointing out the double standard here.

26 years huh?? Wow...zzzzzzzz

Previous disciplinary matters relating to dangerous tackles in 2008 had counted against him that is why he got 5 weeks. It is outlawed because of the potential for head injuries.

I recently did the NZRU rugby smart course, which they make all refs and coaches do every year, and they showed a graph detailing the number of serious neck/back injuries each year. The number has decreased markedly since the late 90's and the tackle overtook the scrum as the major cause of them in the early 2000's. The scrum is nowhere near as dangerous as it used to be - largely due to the way the referees control the engage.

Cave dweller - 2008!!!!!! Really.. thats when some players were still in nappies!(nearly) If they were last year or even the year before, but shit, how long are we going back. Doesn't his good record after 2008 come into account. Also that he is not a malice player.
I am over the going back to 2008. Even the dinosaurs can't remember that far back.

Maybe there should be a standard number of weeks for a player doing the minimal lift above the horizontal. And then add on top of that a number of weeks depending on how bad the player in the tackle comes to ground. What I'm trying to say is that there should be consistency in the decisions and a clear understanding on the players part of what will happen if they pull off a dangerous tackle. It's too much of a grey area at the moment that depends how harsh the judges on these things are feeling during any particular week.

The major issue with the tip tackle is that if you lift them just enough the crowd loves it and your coach gives you a good performance review for making a dominant tackle.

If in the heat of the moment you lift them too much or they slow down into contact you dump them and you're a villain.

I think you'd rarely find a malicious tip tackle.

Hiya TD, and welcome. Just a couple of points
1 Rene Ranger's tackle while I thought deserving of a ban, was not late, if you look closely he actually makes contact before the ball is forced, so therefor still alive.
2 We had a young club player who was injured in a tackle almost exactly like Digby's just last year,as he actually hit the ground his lung exploded, like a balloon. I have know of a couple of neck injuries over the years from thses tackles.