Big difference between an accidental eye poke in a tackle and grabbing a player by the face after the tackle and sticking your fingers in his eye. Bizarre decision by the judiciary but par for the course really. Given up trying to find any logic or consistency in RL penalty systems! www.dailytelegraph.com.au/sport/ ... 7524930695

Big difference between an accidental eye poke in a tackle and grabbing a player by the face after the tackle and sticking your fingers in his eye. Bizarre decision by the judiciary but par for the course really. Given up trying to find any logic or consistency in RL penalty systems! www.dailytelegraph.com.au/sport/ ... 7524930695

Apparently, it was Lineham's 'evasive action and fend' that forced Powell's fingers into his eye, so the contact was accidental; that being the case, why didn't he immediately remove his hand from where it accidentally ended up?

As far as I can see, accidental or not, he still poked him in the eye - that should warrant some sanction, if for no other reason than sending a broader message about protecting players from the risk of entirely avoidable injuries.

You could make an argument for the Powell one being accidental. He's reached out to make a tackle, got done by good footwork and ended up catching the player in the face.

The Lauaki one is an absolute mystery. Even if you accept that the ends of his fingers don't go into the tackled player's eyes, he's still attempted to use his face as a lever to turn him over and put the tackled player at risk of injury as a result. If he'd done that with an arm or a leg, he would have been looking at a ban, so why not doing it with the head?

The MRP have probably reviewed the Powell incident first, and having seen that and decided it wasn't worth a charge thought they had to be consistent, completely missing the massive difference between the two incidents.

So many conspiracy theories.

It could be what you put. Might also be that I saw the Powell one, and didn't see the other one