Hull KR boss urges RFL decision on current Super League disciplinary dramas

Hull KR head coach Willie Peters has called on the RFL to make a decision about how they approach the growing concerns about disciplinary mattersin Super League.

Despite Super League having so much on the line at present, including the League Leaders Shield, the ongoing fight for the play-offs and the scrap to avoid the wooden spoon, talk of disciplinary and bans has consumed the sport.

In recent weeks, seemingly heavy-handed bans have been dished out to the likes of Tommy Makinson and Paul Vaughan for charges of ‘Head Contact’, something that the laws were tightened on before the season got underway.

As such, early in the year, the bans were near constant and very severe, something that slowed down as players, referees and those in charge of the disciplinary panel adjusted to the status quo.

That’s changed in recent weeks and Hull KR boss Willie Peters has now called on the RFL to ‘look at’ the issue, as he noted the increasing number of suspensions when speaking to the press ahead of his side’s Round 26 fixture.

“I won’t go too much into it, I’d rather talk about Leigh and our game ahead, but it’s something that obviously the RFL need to look at,” the Robins boss explained when asked about Jai Whitbread’s one-match ban for making contact with the head.

“I think we did go away from suspensions and for a while, they were just giving penalties and having a look at it later on. If it did get 10 minutes, it didn’t always lead to a suspension and then the last couple of weeks it seems like we’ve gone back on that.”

‘Let the refs ref’ – Peters backs officials but bemoans bans in Super League

Hull KR forward Jai Whitbread was the latest in a string of Super League players to be sent to the sin bin and then later banned for making contact to the head, something that Peters has argued is an accidental element of rugby league.

He’s also backed the on-field referees in their decision-making with many of the recent sin bins for head contact coming after lengthy stoppages and video referee intervention, one of the most controversial topics in Super League at present.

The Hull KR boss said: “I think referees have got a pretty good understanding of the game and over many, many years, even before the video ref was there, they would look at a tackle and go, ‘Yeah, that’s deemed as foul play’ or ‘It’s just an accident’, as happens in rugby league.

“That was in the instance of Jai at the weekend when he’s just ricocheted and slipped up. Then you’ve got the Paul Vaughan situation and there’s a number of them at the moment that players have been suspended for that I don’t think warranted a suspension as much as some of the others.”

Paul Vaughan was controversially sent off and then banned for three matches, something Warrington tried unsuccessfully to appeal, meaning the Australian won’t return until the play-offs.

“You want the best players to play” – Hull KR coach urges RFL action over bans

Losing Vaughan to suspension means Wire were without him for the weekend’s win over St Helens and they won’t have him again in the regular season.

Peters has now argued that one of the major reasons that the RFL must look at how they’re policing head contact in terms of bans is so that the best players aren’t spending all their time sat in the stands.

He argued: “It’s something that we need to look at over here as a game because you want the best players to play. Safety is always number one, we understand that as coaches, we understand that, but there’s going to be accidents in rugby league and then there’s going to be foul play as well and that’s what we need to look at.

“The RFL are the ones that will set the standard with that and the referees will just go off the back of that, as will the players, so it’s an RFL decision that needs to be made.”

It certainly feels like a more common-sense approach needs to be implemented. That was certainly needed at the start of the season when Round One saw a whopping 15 bans after four red cards.

Just a week later, Nu Brown was sent off for clear accidental head contact and the laws were amended which is something that could potentially happen again prior to 2025 to help eradicate this current controversy.