Castleford Tigers coach still ‘unclear’ on Liam Watts’ “harsh” ban

Castleford Tigers head coach Craig Lingard has spoken to the media today and explained that there needs to be far greater clarity on what determines either a low or high ‘level of force’, explaining he’s still “unclear” on the controversial Liam Watts ban.

Watts was sent off around the half-hour mark of Castleford’s opening game of the season against Wigan Warriors for what was classed as contact with the head, Watts’ arm and shoulder clocking Tyler Dupree as he failed to fully wrap.

Fans were shocked when Watts was shown a red card by Tom Grant and even more shocked when the Operational Rules Tribunal upheld the Grade E charge, banning the Tigers’ veteran for four matches.

Craig Lingard has now told the media that he thinks there needs to be a period of reassessment as well as clarity on the term ‘force’ and how exactly it is quantified.

Ahead of Castleford Tigers’ clash with Salford Red Devils, he said: “I think with everything, you’ve always got to re-evaluate and reassess, and you’re never ever going to get everything 100% right from week one. There’s always going to be things that happen.

“I think there were other cards during that first weekend which were given as yellow which could quite easily have been red and we obviously got the other way around which were a red where it could have quite easily initially been a yellow.”

Two of the three other three red cards from Round One went to Hull FC and controversially Franklin Pele was handed just a three-match ban, one game below the sanctioning guidelines for a Grade E charge which was the same level as Watts.

Also, Ligi Sao found his ban reduced from three matches to two, further highlighting the necessity for re-assessment that Lingard has called for. Some of that re-assessment will be discussed when Lingard meets with Robert Hicks of the RFL, a meeting that the Castleford Tigers coach confirmed had been arranged.

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Lingard continued to explain his thoughts behind the current disciplinary drama and he highlighted a major draw-back in the criteria for suspensions which is ‘force’ and how it is measured, explaining that the new mouthguards that can measure impact are yet to be in use.

“We know that there’s going to be discrepancies and that’s part of the issue for me, there’s too many grey areas at certain times and the other thing for me is the wording of force or the level of force in these contacts,” the Castleford Tigers’ boss explained.

“Who determines the level of force in contact? We’re not using the mouthguards as yet which have been mandated, we’re not using the level of force that these mouthguards are showing us there. It’s just subjective is the level of force in a contact.

“When you’re reading the dismissal report and the referees report saying it was a high level of force, then on whose determination and whose qualification is it that it’s a high level of force. There are certain things that I think we need a little bit of clarity on.”

Lingard concluded by accepting that everyone is prone to errors, that he potentially had overreacted initially himself, but that he still deemed Watts’ four-game ban harsh particularly given that players are being asked to change habits of a lifetime overnight.

“We know that we’re not going to get everything right 100% of the time,” Lingard stated.

“The players aren’t going to get it right, the coaches aren’t going to get it right, the referees aren’t going to get it right. I guess we’ve got to expect and anticipate that there’s going to be errors in judgement and errors in what people see as well.

“I’ll hold my hands up and maybe say that we’re a little bit too reactive initially. Wattsy can maybe be a little bit better and make sure that he tries to make a better attempt to bend his knees into contact. It’s a learning curve. We’re trying to change players’ habits over the course of their career, after a 10-week off-season.

“For Wattsy to be sat down for four games seems a little bit excessive to me for the tackle that it was. He didn’t come out of the line and try and whack somebody and take his head off. He has made contact with a player’s head unintentionally and a four-game ban on the back of that just seems for me a little bit too harsh.”