Last night Wakefield Trinity’s Hugo Salabio was handed a seven match ban for his tackle on Leeds Rhinos star Richie Myler.
He was also fined £1,000.
The reasoning behind this punishment has now been explained by the RFL’s notes on the tribunal.
The following is a list of reasons why the charge was given:
As the ball is lodged between both the player and the opponent, Mr Salabio proceeds to lifts his opponent taking his opponents feet off the ground.
Mr Salabio at the highest point of the lift then turns his opponent.
Mr Salabio then drives his opponent down maintaining the grip all the way to the ground.
Mr Myler lands on his head and neck first upon contacting the ground.
Mr Myler is completely vulnerable not only due to the lifting action of Mr Salabio but because Mr Myler believes he is the defender in this instance and is performing a wrap tackle himself so is not expecting this sort of action.
Potential for serious injury.
Graded F due to;
– Vulnerability of the opponent.
– The highly dangerous action of the player.
– The potentially serious implications that a tackle of this nature may have. No mitigation that the opponent did not sustain an injury.
– Players have a duty of care to their opponent.
At the end of the tribunal, the following verdict was reached:
It was clear from the footage that the Tribunal were able to see that this was a Grade F offence. The Tribunal agreed with the comments made on behalf of the RFL that the player forcefully drives down his opposite number, his feet left the ground, the tackled player went to ground with significant force and was in a vulnerable position.
It was by good fortune that the player tackled was not significantly injured.
On behalf of the player the Tribunal took on board submissions from Michael Carter and Mark Applegarth. They accept that he is a young player who has no previous disciplinary issues neither here nor in France where he has been playing in the French Elite 1 competition. It was also accepted that there was no malice or intent. It was a particularly bad tackle and the player simply “got it wrong.”
The Tribunal felt that the player very quickly moved from being the attacker to then being a defender after he dropped the ball and it was a split-second decision to affect the tackle that he did.
It was noted that the player was sent off at half-time and to that extent this tackle already cost his team half a match without him.
In all of the circumstances, the Tribunal felt that the appropriate sanction was to ban the player for seven matches and make him subject to the guideline fine of £1000.
