Comments on: Alesana Tuilagi ban: are minnows unfairly treated?

By: grundy

grundy — Thu, 08 Oct 2015 12:25:26 +0000

he doesn’t “lead with the knee” he is high stepping into the gap between the tacklers feet and then he is going to drive his body weight down on the shoulder to break the tackle. He does it all the time and it isn’t illegal!
This is crazy, I hadn’t seen this before but this is totally ridiculous

By: twelvestocks

twelvestocks — Thu, 08 Oct 2015 08:58:04 +0000

As it spoils many a professional sport I think it’s all about money. The islands teams are pretty much exploited by the richer rugby nations. Japan rugby on the other hand is full of money due to the corporate links of their major teams. It stinks as you say. If it was all about the rugby as we’d like it to be then we wouldn’t have a closed shop 6 nations and we would properly support rugby in the pacific islands. I think they should have an inter islands tournament and then their test side should represent the pacific islands, much as the West Indies do in cricket. At the moment it is like they’re deliberately kept down.

By: charleswhitting

charleswhitting — Wed, 07 Oct 2015 13:18:29 +0000

I watched that clip without reading what the offence was and I was utterly baffled as to what it was he had done. Rewatched it, guessing maybe he’d thrown some sneaky punch or something that merited a ban. Having now found out it was for ‘leading with the knee’ I’m frankly rather annoyed.

Mildly off topic, but The Telegraph table lists eight suspensions but labels it six? Don’t they have sub editors?

By: Gray

Gray — Wed, 07 Oct 2015 10:37:17 +0000

This decision is anti rugby – watching at full speed how was tuilagi supposed to do. Poor technique from the Japanese and not tuilagi.

By: stroudos

stroudos — Wed, 07 Oct 2015 10:35:25 +0000

“Leading with the knee”?!?!? What, running, you mean!

Don’t know about the rest of you but I ALWAYS lead with my knees when I run. I find leading with the heels, arse-cheeks or ears tends to be a less productive running style.

To quote “Bacon” from Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels – left foot, right foot, your body will follow.

A five week ban for running in a straight line while carrying a rugby ball, compared with one week for deliberately charging into a ruck with no attempt to bind and shoulder-charging at the temple of a player in a vulnerable position, committed by a bloke with very recent “previous” for violent conduct (although admittedly I felt the previous one was a load of nonsense too)……….. yeah I would say there’s an imbalance in the way these cases are judged.

By: Pablito

Pablito — Wed, 07 Oct 2015 10:12:00 +0000

Without having seen the other offences, I find it difficult to comment

For the ones I have seen – there’s no doubt on this particular incident that Tuilagi leads with the knee. Is it an offence? Yes. Is it a 5 week ban? Absolutely not, couple of weeks at most

If this is 5 weeks, should Hooper have got longer.

PS – putting Burgess in this list is typical of Paul Hayward who seems to have something against him. Yes, Burgess tackled Hooper high, mainly ‘cos Hooper was ducking to try and grab the ball after he’d dropped it. It was in no way as bad as the other offences I’ve seen in this list and you could have observed about 10 similar tackles in last night’s Uruguay Fiji game that went unpunished

By: Doc

Doc — Wed, 07 Oct 2015 10:00:59 +0000

Can the citing commissioner be cited?

By: Paul Melhuish

Paul Melhuish — Wed, 07 Oct 2015 09:40:01 +0000

Stupid ban!!!!!!!!

By: brighty

brighty — Wed, 07 Oct 2015 08:48:15 +0000

It beggars belief that they are so brazen about it. Of course they are coming down harder on the minnows – charitably you could call it unconscious bias but I wouldn’t be charitable. The whole thing is so obviously rotten. Stinking.