Jon Wilkin believes the right call was made in upholding Elliot Minchella’s ban heading into the Super League play-offs. The Hull KR man was handed a two-match ban for what was deemed to be a recklessly high tackle on Matt Moylan during the Robins’ win over Leigh Leopards in the penultimate round of regular season fixtures.
Minchella was shown a yellow card at the time and was handed the Grade C charge a few days later by the Match Review Panel. With the play-offs on the horizon, Rovers chose to appeal the length of the ban with a hearing delayed until this week, ensuring the skipper sat out of last Friday’s win over Leeds Rhinos.
However, the club have been unsuccessful with their appeal with an independent panel upholding the suspension to leave Willie Peters without Minchella for the club’s home play-off semi-final next week. It remains to be seen if KR will appeal once more and escalate the process, but for the time being Minchella looks set to miss what is arguably the biggest game in the club’s recent history.
Minchella’s absence cannot be understated for Wilkin, but the Sky Sports pundit believes that ultimately the correct decision has been made.
“It’s huge,” Wilkin said while talking on Sky Sports News. “He has been incredible. Elliot Minchella, for people who don’t follow rugby league, is almost a link between forwards and backs and he creates so much for them.
“How much will he rue that challenge? I agree, it shouldn’t be downgraded. There’s no malice in it and Minchella is not an aggressive player, he doesn’t do this, but it just looks awful. I think downgrading just because the play-offs are round the corner would have been the wrong thing to do.
“A massive loss for Willie Peters. He’s almost irreplaceable and they’re a different team when he’s not in there. It makes you wonder going into the play-offs, it’s been such a season Hull KR have had but if they don’t come through – they have a rest this week obviously – you can bet your bottom dollar that Elliot Minchella will be the talking point.”
