I think I agree with all this.fivepointer wrote:Is Hepetema intending to hit the ball carrier? Plainly he is. Thats intent. Is he looking to hit him high with the shoulder? I'd say yes given he had plenty of time to adjust. So we can rule out this being in any way an accidental collision. Hepetema does nothing to get himself into a position to affect a legal challenge despite the opportunity to do so.Raggs wrote:You'd be wrong in terms of dangerous. Calculated is meaningless, it's impossible to determine intent in the vast majority of cases, and even if the intent wasn't there, it doesn't mean it's better. Malicious is really looking into intent. You have to look at outcome, because you cannot determine what's inside someones head in these circumstances.fivepointer wrote:Looking at the 2 incidents I'd say Hepetema's challenge was far more calculated, dangerous and malicious. There was no mitigation at the time - the player being hit is not falling - and Hepetema makes no effort to adjust his height. Its a bad challenge which deserved a far greater penalty.
The player being hit definitely goes down, not enough for it to be mitigation from a red card (and the panel clearly don't argue this, otherwise they'd have removed the red card), but he does dip a bit, he is effected by the tackle. I don't think Hepetema is innocent, I'm not arguing that.
You have to start from the entry points. Both were determined to be mid level, if you want to argue one should have been high/low you're going to need to do better than thinking Thorley's is less dangerous, when we have evidence showing that head to head is 6x more dangerous than shoulder to head.
Once both are at 6 weeks, we have one pleading guilty, one pleading not guilty. One admitting that his actions were foul play, another saying they weren't. Both then have clean records upto this point I believe. Maximum reduction is 3 weeks. I don't see why it's confusing as to how Hepetema got the full 3 weeks, and Thorley only got 2 weeks.
Running upright and high speed into another upright player may not always cause head to head, but it's reckless, and when it does cause head to head, that recklessness has had consequences that are extremely dangerous.
Do I think Thorley deserved red? Yes I do. For me it was obviously accidental but clearly all players have to display care and he got himself into a bad position and entered the contact clumsily. There may have been a slight nudge from behind but its not clear that it was a decisive intervention. The red was right.
My gripe is the panel failing to distinguish between a challenge that, though clumsy, was plainly accidental, and one that was very clearly not an accident. The former is part and parcel of the game and will likely always be with us such is the nature of the game. The latter is something we all want to see removed.
How you plead shouldnt enter into it. The judgment should be made based on the facts presented.
Just seen the Thorley incident now and I feel for him. There's an element of him having held off a touch to see which way the fullback goes, and I can see the argument for a shove from Shields/Willis just before he goes in too, but can't see anything definitive on that. But yes, the Hepetema one is far worse in terms of intent I think. Certain players go for those sorts of hits, sometimes you start to recognise a pattern of poor tackle technique that repeats itself and risks injury every time. Thorley's seemed like more of a freak thing, even if his technique/reaction in that moment wasn't great.