Thorn punished for spearing Smit

Reminds me of when Umaga and another player spear tackled Brian O'Driscoll at the start of the Lions tour a few years ago. Perhaps it's a tactic to get the opposition captain early on. Quite a few New Zealand players have been banned for spear tackles lately
 
That's a very weak punishment. I'm willing to bet if the roles were reversed the ban would have been longer.
 
very weak ban but look he is not the only oke to have speared someone

didnt burger do it once and got like a 2 month ban or something

i can remember a south african just before the world cup or during it
 
do referees get reviewed after the game? wonder how d'knson feels, if it bothers him at all. i recall after the incident smit went up to him and asked.. "wasn't that a spear" and he shrugged his shoulders and said no.
 
Fiekus said:
do referees get reviewed after the game? wonder how d'knson feels, if it bothers him at all. i recall after the incident smit went up to him and asked.. "wasn't that a spear" and he shrugged his shoulders and said no.
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Not AFAIK. If they are, it is done behind closed doors and I havent heard of a single punishment imposed for bad refereeing. Interesting to watch the replay that Dickinson was watching the actual tackle take place...

I still reckon he saw it and used his discretion considering it was the opening minutes of what he knew would be a bruising and very emotional game. The commentators in the Sharks game agreed that the ref should have done this exact same thing when the bulls player apparently stomped on a Sharks player in the opening minute. And John Smit re-iterated this view in his post-match interview.
 
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You bring up a point...

killadoob said:
very weak ban but look he is not the only oke to have speared someone
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...which is totally true but then you go on to explain the exact reason many of us have a problem with the outcome....

killadoob said:
didnt burger do it once and got like a 2 month ban or something
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Again all anyone asks for is consistency! And I think this cr_p of someone's previous record is precisely that, cr_p! If I spear someone and break his neck do you think he is going to be worried about the fact that it was my first time or 20th?
 
DJStealth said:
I still reckon he saw it and used his discretion considering it was the opening minutes of what he knew would be a bruising and very emotional game. The commentators in the Sharks game agreed that the ref should have done this exact same thing when the bulls player apparently stomped on a Sharks player in the opening minute. And John Smit re-iterated this view in his post-match interview.
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DJ, I said it in the other thread but you have repeated yourself so what i said their bears repeating!

The rules do not state that indiscretions are dealt with differently in the first ten minutes compared to the remaining 70! If these guys want to come out after bashing their heads against the walls in the change rooms and play dirty then they must be punished the same as the guy that does it in the 70th! As I said, does that mean everyone can come out throwing punches in the first 10? I think not.

This reminds me of two incidents.... Bryan Habana with his late, in the air, tackle early in the Super 14 final... he should have spent 10 minutes in the bin but didn't! Your logic is that it must be a fair contest and it would not be if a player was sent off. Well what about the team that now has an injured player! Is it fair on them? Punish the bastards from the first second!

Another incident is during the world cup when the Samoan tried to kill one of our players after just running on for his last appearance as a replacement. Should he not have been sent off as he had only just run on the field and it was his opening minutes of a VERY emotional game for him? It's not fair that he did as he had only just come on so the ref should have used his discretion! Cr_p no matter the time he must get sent off! Rules are rules. These guys are professional.
 
You guys may be interesting in this website.... it often has video of controversial decisions and gives professional refs decision on the matter. Unfortunately the opinion if given by fellow professional refs so I tend to find they do not give unbiased views and don't seem to like to criticise a fellow blind man!

http://www.sareferees.co.za/
 
That's a big problem here Lancelot, our refs, rugby officials are silent when our teams get short changed by overseas refs. But let the roles be reversed, Nz and Aussie officials are full of comments in the media.

The Bryce Lawrence basically cheated in the Sharks vs Brumbies game in the S14, he missed a few games for that, but was back for the last few rounds of the round robin.
Tappe Henning had a supposed bad game last season in S14 and missed a whole lot more games than Lawrence did.

And what about how lenient the citing commissioners are with Nz and Aussie players, and severe with SA players.
 
LancelotSA said:
DJ, I said it in the other thread but you have repeated yourself so what i said their bears repeating!

The rules do not state that indiscretions are dealt with differently in the first ten minutes compared to the remaining 70! If these guys want to come out after bashing their heads against the walls in the change rooms and play dirty then they must be punished the same as the guy that does it in the 70th! As I said, does that mean everyone can come out throwing punches in the first 10? I think not.

This reminds me of two incidents.... Bryan Habana with his late, in the air, tackle early in the Super 14 final... he should have spent 10 minutes in the bin but didn't! Your logic is that it must be a fair contest and it would not be if a player was sent off. Well what about the team that now has an injured player! Is it fair on them? Punish the bastards from the first second!

Another incident is during the world cup when the Samoan tried to kill one of our players after just running on for his last appearance as a replacement. Should he not have been sent off as he had only just run on the field and it was his opening minutes of a VERY emotional game for him? It's not fair that he did as he had only just come on so the ref should have used his discretion! Cr_p no matter the time he must get sent off! Rules are rules. These guys are professional.
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I guess I just see the discretion part differently to you thats all - I tend to see it the way that John Smit and our local refs do. I dont want to get into a debate about discretion and how much a ref should have as its a silly debate, I just see the rules regarding the issuing of cards to be more of a grey area than black and white...
 
DJStealth said:
I guess I just see the discretion part differently to you thats all - I tend to see it the way that John Smit and our local refs do. I dont want to get into a debate about discretion and how much a ref should have as its a silly debate, I just see the rules regarding the issuing of cards to be more of a grey area than black and white...
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In reference to John Smit... who knows what effect a sin binning would have had, but we lose the match.... to make matters worse Smit leaves the field with a groin injury which he himself states was aggravated by the incident so the net result is we lost out major as a result of the refs discretion. Not sure how that discretion is cleaning up the game of rugby either.
 
LancelotSA said:
In reference to John Smit... who knows what effect a sin binning would have had, but we lose the match.... to make matters worse Smit leaves the field with a groin injury which he himself states was aggravated by the incident so the net result is we lost out major as a result of the refs discretion. Not sure how that discretion is cleaning up the game of rugby either.
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Bugger the cleaning up - off the ball incidents have always existed and always will I reckon. I like the tempers flaring a little in games of such importance!

The ref's decision post incident would have had no difference on John sustaining the injury. And an injury is no grounds to influence a ref's decision either. The ref's discretion had no impact on John Smit at the end of the day...
 
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