Most spear tackles are from a tackle round the hips/thighs, followed by lifting. If you look at the tackle closely, you can see that Ferres's arms are round Lomax's chest and Ferres would not have expected Lomax's feet to go up and head to go down (surely the metal plate in his head wouldn't be that heavy!) Having said that, when he realised what was happening, Ferres should have let Lomax down gently, so the red card was justified. It did look as if he lost his balance though, so I hope the ban won't be too harsh.

Ablett deserves everything that comes his way, he is a right wind up merchant and very niggley in the tackle.

Good description, but this is the RFL, they'll be wanting to put down a marker to the 'lower' teams with this so I expect he'll get an 8 game ban when in reality it should be 4..

The tackle, I believe, was reckless and not malicious. I really like Brett Ferres as a player, and I don't think for a second that the outcome was what he had in mind. But for all that, players need to take responsibility for these types of incidents, and long bans are key to that. It was a terrible tackle.

As for consistency, I can't actually remember another tackle like it, but I agree that we need to consistently punish very dangerous tackles harshly. To me, that means if penalties have been too lenient in the past the line in the sand should be drawn here and then kept to.

Shame this has descended into inter-club fan bickering. Which sadly seems to have been mostly instigated by my fellow Leeds fans. RL fans of all clubs are like any other group: most of them are decent enough, some of them are bad w*****s. I can't think of any club that's an exception to that rule.

As for fans cheering Wardle when he was sent off for biffing Ablett, I can't believe what I'm reading. Fans have cheered biff for as long as I have been watching the game. I've never seen a player sent off for fighting and not get a warm reception from his own fans. Lets leave the mock-righteous indignation at home.

I would also love to see any player in any sport who calls for a card to get exactly what they ask for. that would stamp it out. Until that happens, I think we'll continue to see players from all teams do it. Again, no team is above reproach on this one, so attempts to claim the moral high ground are best avoided.

I hope Ferres gets the maximum ban, takes it on the chin and comes back strongly, and maybe has a good think about his technique.

and if my auntie had a dick she'd be my uncle!!!!!!

im not the only one who saw wardle being held down by the collar by lomax then! should of been a giants penalty

Instead of being your sister?











Sorry, but that seemed too easy.

Guilty

5 games for Brett
"Brett Ferres of @Giantsrl has pleaded guilty to a Grade E dangerous throw offence and has been suspended for 5 games & fined £300"

was expecting 6-8, so got off lightly IMO

Means his first game back is v Saints

5 match ban.....about right, think if he had caused an injury it would have been 8 though.

He will definitely learn from this will Brett.

Fair enough... still a big ban...got a red card and we are out of the cup...plenty of punishment.

returns 23rd may away at st helens - boooooooooooo

Will he not return the week before v Bradford?

Now it's all over and I can be spared the saints fans baying for blood-and This is purely an observation about the man not the tackle- can I just say..... How blooming strong is Brett to be able to lift a guy over by his chest like that!

I think 5 is about right TBH. 4-5 is what I expected.

i said 4 would be the minimum but i expected more, don't think anyone can argue with 5 match ban

let's just hope they are consistent now and give similar bans to similar offences ( yes i know that is expecting too much)

Absolutely agree. I think 5 is about right but the most important thing is that this is now used as the Benchmark for bans for similar offences. It's the lack of consistency when dishing out bans and the lack of consistency in refereeing that drive me more mad than anything else about the game.

true, the inconsistency is very frustrating!
i think in every game of ours this year i have seen more inconsistent and poor refereeing than i have in the previous 5 years!
it needs sorting, not because my team seem to be on the end of a lot of poor refereeing and inconsistency but because i am a rugby league fan and i want the standards to improve for the benefit of the game as a whole.

i even get frustrated watching games on tv with the poor officiating.

as a team we make it to easy for ref to do us the Gerry welsh penalty for example welsh pushes Gerry as soon as Gerry pushes him back it gives Bentham the opportunity to do him the next penalty a classic giants 5th tackle in no danger lets do something daft soon afterwards Ferris again on the 5th in no danger stops the move brain stops working.after seeing it again it was a slow he had plenty of time to stop 5 games ok by me
we just need to be smarter

At the time I'm writing this, the RFL disciplinary committee website doesn't show the decision or any reasons for the punishment given, so I can't be sure, but it seems to me that they probably saw the tackle the same way as I did. 5 games seems fair to me.

5 matches is fair. However after the McKinnon incident I thought the disciplinary might have wanted to send a message out and given him the full 8. So he's lucky in that respect.

HE has effectively got 6 because Ref Hall always seem to accept a red card is one game.

No complaints from me about the ban

For those of you not on Twitter, Ferres has tweeted an apology to Jonny Lomax for the tackle, saying he would never intentionally set out to hurt someone, that he is glad Lomax is ok and that he has accepted his punishment. He has also tweeted a separate apology to his team mates, the club's staff and fans for undermining his team's chances of winning the game.

yes sorry forgot about that one!

I love it when I stand behind the sticks at away games when you can see how far and fast that sidestep takes him, and he's a top bloke too.