If you watched the weekend’s rugby, you would have seen the incidents in question, but somehow, the judicial system got it wrong once again, as Aussie lock Rob Simmons got an eight week ban for a tip tackle while All Black flank Adam Thomson got one week for stamping.
Simmons was cited by South African Freek Burger, who judged his tackle on Yannick Nyanga to be dangerous, yet never received a red card during play as a result of the officials not being able to identify the player.
Thomson, whose boot made contact with Alasdair Strokosch’s head, was given a yellow card (who many feel was a light sentencing) and was subsequently given a one week ban, as it was on the lower end of the scale of IRB sanctions.
Surely a stamping and an extremely dangerous tip tackle need to be close together on this scale of IRB sanctions? How is it possible that one player can walk away with a single week ban and another with a two month ban?
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You are right it isn’t fair, how dare the suspend Thompson.
@Mutley (Comment 1) :
He is an All Black for Pete’s sake, how dare they?!
What is the point of banning Simmons for eight weeks if it means he is only going to miss three games? Doesn’t make much sense to me.
In my opinion Thompson’s ban is fair. It looked to me as if he was aiming for the ball and unintentionally connected with the player’s head. He stopped as soon as it happened and instead used his hands to get the ball out. That’s the way I saw it anyway.
The should just make it official and change the name of the International Rugby Board to the Number One New Zealand Admiration Society already.
How long will Kempson get? life hopefully.
@13 (Comment 3) : I believe the ban is also against training as well. The 8 week ban takes him all the way to 24 February 2012 which is the week before Super Rugby starts. If he can’t do any training, he doesn’t have a proper preseason and he might not get “going” in SR until he’s caught up with the rest.
@Butchie34 (Comment 6) :
The ban is from playing rugby, not training..
Ofcourse the player can still train with his team!?!
@Richard Ferguson (Comment 7) : Is it 8 weeks or 8 matches? When John Smit received a 6 week suspension due to a dangerous elbow on the EOYT the suspension was carried out at the beginning of SuperRugby as I recall. Could be wrong though.
@Dancing Bear (Comment 8) : Ban is for 8 weeks. I think they should start banning players for a set amount of games (e.g. 3 currie cup or 2 super 15, etc), would make it easier to understand.
IRB Reviewing Thompson ban.
They should provide guidance to bans like in Rugby League.
Its the only way to sort this out.
High tackle x number of weeks.
Throw a punch x weeks
etc
etc
etc