Disciplinary - Surely a Better Way?

I don't think it is unfair to say that the disciplinary process in Rugby League is a bit of a circus.

The RFL publish guidelines to try and ensure that decisions, charges and punishments are as consistent as they can be. Ultimately, the decision to ban, to not ban, or for how long to ban are decided by human beings applying a set of criteria.

There are no set of criteria that can exclude subjectivity. For example, a high tackle which one person may deem careless, another may deem reckless and that subjective decision leads to inconsistency.

Each match is reviewed with a fine toothcomb looking for incidents that may be worthy of a ban. You question whether this is the best use of time. Does anyone benefit from this?

I wonder if it would we could learn from football. Would it be better to punish incidents only that are missed entirely by match officials and those that lead to cards? If the referee rules an on-field penalty and nothing more, is it time to just move on, except in the most inexplicable of circumstances?

Does the sport really gain anything by this level of micro-analysis? You could make an argument that to strip back the reach of the disciplinary panel would endanger player safety and lead to greater recklessness. 

That may be correct but the number of incidents we have seen in recent weeks and the severity of foul play suggests that banning players may not improve safety levels at all and does not act as the deterrent that you may think.

In football, a red card for foul play is almost always a three match ban. You know where you stand. Get sent off, get three matches. It's simple, it removes subjectivity. Football does make exceptions for particularly egregious offences such as Fulham striker Aleksandar Mitrović's disgraceful conduct towards a match official last season.

Should we now do the same in an attempt to end the circus, end the controversy and in a final throw at the much-vaunted consistency?

I do have sympathy with the RFL to some extent. For example, Josh McGuire received a 12 match ban for using discriminatory language, which naturally gets compared to Kai O' Donnell receiving a six match ban for a spear tackle which had the potential to cause devastating injury.

We should also be proud of our sport's strong stance against abuse of match officials and the work done to, for example, engage those with disabilities. The sorts of unavoidable comparisons between foul play and conduct offences are awkward for the RFL. 

Where the RFL are correct is to stand strong against this kind of backlash and maintain that our sport is one where discriminatory behaviour or abuse of match officials is treated with the utmost seriousness.

Every few years we have an overhaul of the disciplinary system, with a promise to make things better. That never really happens and can never truly be achieved as no system will please everyone.

Maybe the answer is to borrow from football and keep it as simple as possible. Maybe we have disappeared down a wormhole of micro-analysis. Maybe that's why you see embarrassing posts from fan accounts, crying over minor indiscretions and freeze frames to get that "gotcha" moment and trying to get a rival banned.

Disciplinary panel and suspensions are boring. And we are obsessed with it in Rugby League. In part, it is on fans and all of the sport's custodians to stop that ourselves. 

But that is impossible for as long as the forensic dissection of each match looking for indiscretions that nobody noticed in the first place continues by the governing body.