Brumbies v Chiefs

Billy Tell

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I'm curious then as to why you feel he deserves only 1-2 weeks.
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Because I feel grabbing someone round the neck like that is in the neck-roll etc category, but a bit more severe. A neck roll gets somewhere from a simple penalty to a YC. By definition Pocock should have got a red card since he was cited (meets threshold for red card). He's been cited under 10.4 (e): Playing a player without the ball is dangerous play; and 10.4 (m): Acts contrary to good sportsmanship. Low entry seems to be 2 weeks for the first offence and 4 weeks for the 2nd offence. Hence 2 weeks.
 
I don't personally think it's a mid-range or high-end offence, but if this is considered the case, the ban risks being longer of course.
 
I'm actually interested now to see if I've grossly downplayed this, in which I'll need to take a hard at my judgement...

WillieTheWaiter

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Because I feel grabbing someone round the neck like that is in the neck-roll etc category, but a bit more severe. A neck roll gets somewhere from a simple penalty to a YC. By definition Pocock should have got a red card since he was cited (meets threshold for red card). He's been cited under 10.4 (e): Playing a player without the ball is dangerous play; and 10.4 (m): Acts contrary to good sportsmanship. Low entry seems to be 2 weeks for the first offence and 4 weeks for the 2nd offence. Hence 2 weeks.
 
I don't personally think it's a mid-range or high-end offence, but if this is considered the case, the ban risks being longer of course.
 
I'm actually interested now to see if I've grossly downplayed this, in which I'll need to take a hard at my judgement...
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he was fcuking strangling someone who was trapped and couldn't do anything else about it. and kept going as the maul collapsed.
 
Must have been fcuking horrible for Leitch, would have felt like it was going on for a long time.
 
Deliberate strangulation of someone is right up there with eye gouging - the fact he kept going with it and it was a deliberate act has me thinking there's no way it's a low end offence.
 
Don't get disgusted by too much that goes on on a rugby field - but that was nothing but filth on somone that couldn't do sh it about it.

SammyC

Reminds me of that thug Tialata strangling McCaw at the bottom of a ruck a few years back.
 
He wasn't even cited if I recall correctly.

Milk

There was something really unsettling about watching Leitch desperately trying to tap out

Tim

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Reminds me of that thug Tialata strangling McCaw at the bottom of a ruck a few years back.
 
He wasn't even cited if I recall correctly.
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One of our great forum moments was when a poster's wife saw Tialata at the airport shortly after and inadvertently (and loudly) blurted out "It's that dick who tried to strangle Richie!"

Crucial

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Reminds me of that thug Tialata strangling McCaw at the bottom of a ruck a few years back.
 
He wasn't even cited if I recall correctly.
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Except it also had an added element of danger aside from the choking. Being in a collapsing and twisting maul while someone has their arm tight around your neck must be scary.
 
Pocock also appears to go for the neck area deliberately. When he first joins the maul he binds with his left arm. When the Chiefs get low and get a shove on he wraps his right arm around Leitch's neck and starts applying pressure. He can't claim he didn't know what he was doing as there is no other part of the body that his arm could go around like that.
 
I hope they throw the book at him. (but they won't)

beardie

Pocock gets 3 weeks, meaning 2 games.
 
<a data-ipb='nomediaparse' href='http://www.sanzarrugby.com/superrugby/'>http://www.sanzarrugby.com/superrugby/</a>

Unco

A two match ban? Really? I have nothing against Pocock as a person but that's pathetic.

Wreck Diver

That's rubbish if a bye week is part of your ban. Nonu got one week and it was a bye and did'nt he have to miss the next game?

Billy Tell

Hmmm. Not certain whether I can claim a moral victory here. It's 3 weeks, but if I twist it it's 2 weeks (2 games), which is what I predicted...
 
Haven't seen the ruling, but I suspect 4 weeks entry, with 1 week taken off for wearing a suit, saying sorry, hugging trees, pleading guilty etc.
 
Edit: here is the ruling "With respect to sanction I deemed the act of foul play merited a low-end entry point of 2 weeks. I then added one week for aggravation due to the need to deter this type of dangerous foul play. However, taking into account mitigating factors including the playerâ€™s early plea, his good character, his genuine remorse and his excellent disciplinary record I reduced the suspension to a period of two weeks.â€

mariner4life

That's so fucking weak. I'm fucking sick of these external factors changing bans. Strangle someone? Should be 4 weeks whether you are a neck-tattooed bogan fuckwit, or a quiet tree hugging social activist. 
Genuine remorse? Fuck off. If they thought he could get off the story would have been different (like when he dropped the knee in the world cup). 
If he was from samoa he would have got a million years

booboo

Weak as piss.

NTA

Further to this: 
Reds prop drops a knee onto Tahs' head = 1 week 
Tahs hooker clocks Toomua in his Ellyse-Perry-growling face = 1 week. 
What the fuck is with those two sentences if a choke hold is 3??

Crucial

If this was 'low entry point ' what on earth do you have to do to increase that to medium? High level must include disembowelment.

Crucial

As some kind of penalty comparison Joe Marler just got 2 weeks and a 20k fine to charity for calling someone a name.
 
'Sticks and stones.....'

nzzp

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'Sticks and stones.....'
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.. may break my bones but going into a maul with Pocock gets your head torn off

mariner4life

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Further to this: 
Reds prop drops a knee onto Tahs' head = 1 week 
Tahs hooker clocks Toomua in his Ellyse-Perry-growling face = 1 week. 
What the fuck is with those two sentences if a choke hold is 3??
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this is what fucks everybody off the most. Yes, the movement of the bans up and down for how ever the judicial officer is feeling is really annoying and arbitrary.
 
But there is no fucking consistency across what a specific action will get you. As you say Nick, how is smacking a bloke in the face worth a third of choking someone out? 
 
I think league and AFL have it right with their grading up front. AFL is pretty specific with how things are graded, with the first judge was the action intentional or careless? then the impact is looked at (severe/high/medium/low) and then where the contact was made (high etc).
 
they have a matrix that spells it out, ie if you have a deliberate act of high impact to the body, 3 weeks (2 with an early guilty plea). But, it's left open for the worst offences. So deliberate, high impact to the head? no upper limit. At that point the debate is purely based on how it was graded. That's a massive step in front of what rugby has now, where bans appear arbitrary across weeks or even games, let alone counties and competitions.

Crucial

The judiciary process IS spelled out and clear, it is the application of it to reach a point that is the problem.
 
In rugby it goes 
 
What is the act (charge). Each charge has clear range of minimums/maximums
 
What is the 'entry point' low/medium/high
 
What are the aggravating factors (is this currently a focus? Did injury result? Was this deliberate?)
 
What are the mitigating factors (is this a 'one-off' from a usually clean player, remorse, early guilty plea?)
 
Personally I think the early plea, remorse and character mitigations shouldn't come into it but no doubt they are there to stop some legal argument around harshness and future employment.
 
The system around early plea is bullshit. They come to a conclusion based on IF the guilty plea is entered then offer it to the player. If he accepts it he gets credited for making a plea that he wouldn't make if he thought the punishment was too high and defends the charge.
 
In order to try and reach this point that the player will accept the JO uses all the other parts to juggle around to a result. The entry point, the mitigations etc are manipulated to create a story that meets the rules and is acceptable to the player.

MajorRage

I hate to go all conspiracy theorist, but I think the book needs to be thrown at the TMO too. 
 
Leitch is on the ground, and the ref asks the TMO to look at anything to do with his neck. The TMO can't spot anything. Yet, social media almost instantly spots the choke, the tapping out and the perptrator. How in the fuck did the TMO not see this? What is the TMO paid to do?
 
Regardless of all citing procedures etc, an on-field red card has 10x the impact of a post match citing.

mariner4life

aggravating and mitigating factors can fuck right off, neither are relevant in any way, and by nature allow the biggest amount of leeway to variation.

The Silver Fern

Brumbies v Chiefs