Punishment Should Fit the Crime I’ll start by nailing my colours well and truly to the mast, I’ve never really liked the on-report system. For me it is an easy cop-out for the weak referee; punishes the player after the event rather than benefitting the team offended against; and is a wholly unsatisfactory way to deal with incidents which incense supporters, rile players, and potentially effect results. It is time we had a re-think and encouraged our referees to be empowered on the pitch and make the decisions to punish the offender’s on-the-spot ensuring that their team pays the penalty for their indiscretions. READ MORE ON THIS STORY...

Punishment Should Fit the Crime I’ll start by nailing my colours well and truly to the mast, I’ve never really liked the on-report system. For me it is an easy cop-out for the weak referee; punishes the player after the event rather than benefitting the team offended against; and is a wholly unsatisfactory way to deal with incidents which incense supporters, rile players, and potentially effect results. It is time we had a re-think and encouraged our referees to be empowered on the pitch and make the decisions to punish the offender’s on-the-spot ensuring that their team pays the penalty for their indiscretions. READ MORE ON THIS STORY...

Refs tend to not like sending players off because they get slated for ruining games.
How about, the offending player has to be substituted and cannot return?
That way the offended team gets some benefit from his actions.

Excellent idea. You are absolutely right that fans hate send offs because ultimately it mostly ruins games. Not always but most of the time. But what can you do? That player needs to learn. That's a compromise which does harm the perpetrator albeit somewhat weakly in comparison.

It's better than on report which is used to sit on the fence and let someone else make the tough decision.

Ok I'm going to combine two problems in the game as to why this wouldn't work. On Sunday Bradford had two players in the first half taken from the field injured. Injured enough to not return for the rest of the game. Now say later that game a third man was knocked out but refused to come off the pitch because if he did he wouldn't be allowed to return. He is then subsequently substituted and the coach wouldn't normally let him back on BUT a ref then sends someone off and the coach has no other player to put on in his place other than the player with a head injury.

The game's importance would more often than not come before player safety and for this reason alone should not be considered.

There are question marks about the 'on report' system at the moment, now it is used far more than it should however if an official has not seen the incident or can not get a clear statement from another official at the time then it would be unfair to send off the wrong player or for an incident not worthy of a sending off. On-report can work effectively but a video review system at the time would work best.

People say this is too costly, well HKR have one in the room where the coach sits during games, he can rewind to check what has happened and gives him a clearer indication as to where the players are going wrong...etc so why can't something similar be used with an official on the side lines?

For the time being it doesn't have to be used for try scoring situations, it just has to help find the real perpetrators and see what course of action should be taken. Neil for example used the Kris Welham headbutt. I am in no doubt that he was in the wrong for doing what he did and as many have said it was a red card incident but the opposition player was holding on to his arm and wouldn't let him get a quicker play the ball away. This should have been a penalty for holding down but nothing given. A video footage of this incident could have seen Welham walk but a penalty still given for the first infringement.

Hopefully this statement will ring in the ears at Red Hall and they will change what needs to be changed ASAP.

Putting players on report is just an easy way for the ref to say 'someone else can deal with it'. While I'm not saying there should be sending offs galore, I do think that the sin bin is vastly underused these days.

Games are reviewed anyway, how well they're reviewed is anyone's guess considering Mr Hudgell's comments. So no there isn't a massive need for the on report signal from the official but it is possibly more for his report so he knows it needs to be put in there.

If we sin-bin players for things that may not even be serious enough then we would get calls for results to be reversed because this decision has cost a team the game.

Remembering the report call is for incidents not seen fully by the officials and so a sin bin isn't really fair is it?

Perhaps, instead of "on report" we could have, "play to continue, while video-ref reviews" ??

Which fits in with Luke Dorn saying every game should have a video ref. Make that happen and then "on report" can be an instant video review.

Players being ejected American sports style too (can be replaced but that particular player can't play the rest of the game) is another good idea which would work over on report.

How about, graded penalties like in something like ice hockey.

If its worth a yellow straight yellow same for red, not sure if its just a penalty or a sin bin, a new short sin bin, say 2/3 mins.

a 5 minute sin bin if your put on report and any subsequent ban, 1 game is against the team the offense was against, Ie a 3 game ban, miss next 2 games, 3rd game against opponents, whenever you play them again

But what if said offending player joins a new team before his current team play the offended team? Sorry it doesnt work because of this problem.
Best thing that can happen is an automatic yellow card is given for any offence commited that merits an on report andif the ref is unsure who the offending player is then its automatically the captain (or acting captain if the captain is off the field) who cops the 10 mins. this I think would also get the captains on the pitch really making sure his side are not commiting any foul plays.

Trouble is, on report occurs when the ref hasn't had a good view (or when he's being a bottle-less get). What happens in the former instance if there hasn't actually been a serious offence committed?

Bring back the biff!