Hull KR boss Willie Peters was pleased to see the Match Review Panel make the correct decision following Sauaso Sue’s red card on Friday night. Sue was controversially sent off by referee Chris Kendall after being deemed to make dangerous shoulder to head contact with Leeds Rhinos prop Sam Lisone.
The decision received huge amounts of criticism, as did Ash Handley’s red card moments later for a similar offence at Headingley as Rovers came from behind to win 20-14. As such, eyes were on the disciplinary panel on Monday to see how they would decipher the challenges, particularly after seeing Hull FC man Cade Cust avoid a ban following his sending off a week earlier.
Handley was given a Grade B charge and two disciplinary points, while Sue wasn’t charged at all. Serious About Rugby League has been informed that the rapid loss of height by Lisone prior to the challenge was seen as sufficient mitigation, with Sue doing all he could have reasonably done to adjust as he made the tackle.
As such, the prop will be available this week and Peters was happy to see the Match Review Panel see sense.
Hull KR head coach on Match Review Panel decision
“I got a phone call and the message that Jesse had no charges,” Peters said when asked about the Sue verdict. “I said after the game that I didn’t think it was a red card so once the panel said there was no charge, we moved on.
“There was a word that they used at the time but I was going to wait and see what the panel said. There’s nothing I could have done about it.
“He got sent off, we got through the game and it goes back to what the panel were saying and what matters to me at the end of the day is do we have our player for next week, does he lose points or do they see it how we saw it?
“Then there would have been questions in and around that and we would have had a look at whether we would have fought it. It’s good that the panel saw what most people were seeing.”
Eric T Cat
May 1, 2025 at 11:15 am
Are the referee and video referee subject to any sanction? They were possibly the only two people on planet Earth who thought that was a red card, at worst ten minutes and on report, realistically on report for later review was appropriate. Instead we have to go through the rigamarole of convening the disciplinary, lawyers brought in, etc.