Obviously as a Wigan fan I am over the moon with this decision. As a rugby league fan I am hugely disappointed. First game of season The RFL could have sent a clear message out by issuing a 3 match ban, instead they have bottled it. For whatever reason.

Some leniency has clearly (and wrongly) been shown to avoid a ban for the WCC. But a non-suspension would have been more acceptable if the ref had shown some bottle at the time and sent Bowen to the sin-bin. On-report is becoming far too much of a cop-out response and the refs need to start taking more onfield action. It needs to be made clear exactly what kind of offences are worthy of a sin-bin and which ones result in a sending off. It seems like the refs don't always know what to do and putting incidents on report to be retrospectively dealt with is the easy option.

Closed fist, open palm, bounced up. People can dress it up how they wish but an obstructive high shot is an obstructive high shot. Good to see some Wigan fans disagreeing with the decision. Kudos!

you have just made that up. Surely its just counted as a professional foul? i think he should or received a 2 game ban for super league games and not a friendly and a WCC game.



Most people who have played the game would have been in that point where your committed for a tackle but realise the ball has gone and you have a brain snap and carry through with the tackle. It was naughty of bowen i don't think it could have ever really hurt grix it was more of a close line than a swinging high arm.



Nothing like the Meli Incident that was just sickening to watch

Nothing like the Hep cahil, that was massively mistimed and misjudged even if it was an accident. have to have some control if your trying to land a free hit or thats exactly what happens a 15stone bloke plus ends up taking somebodies head off at high speed with a shoulder.

Are you seriously suggesting Bowen was committed before realising that Grix didn't have the ball?? Grix ran about 5 metres without the ball before he got to Bowen.

I think you are being overly kind to Bowen there. He could have easily pulled out, he moved in to it (I don’t want to say jump because he didn’t leap but he was 100% moving in to it not pulling back) it was high, stiff arm to the neck of a player who hadn’t had the ball for a couple of seconds.



It was a late, high, unnecessary illegal hit on a player that didn’t have the ball, there is no mitigation, no excuse for it. It was poor. A few games would have been the right decision.



Ryan Bailey does that to Charnley and people would be demanding 5-6 matches.

There was no way in the world he was going to get banned with the WCC coming up. The RFL always go soft in the run up to big games.



If he'd done that mid season he'd have rightly been banned.

Not at all, What i am saying is he is committed him self to tackling grix but has had a brain snap when the ball has gone and he realised it but has already committed him self to it and instead of just pulling out altogether he has got it completely wrong and clotheslined him. I know thats happened to me in a game when i was younger (although i didn't clothesline him haha).



Its defiantly a ban probably 1 game with an EGP, but if the system was set up correctly i think that would have been applied. Its harsh to ban a player for a WCC for something silly like that he should serve a suspension in a super league game. I hope the RFL change the rule even for challenge cup matches.

read my post to YG.



And we all know ryan bailey wouldn't have slapped a player it would have been a swinging arm just like the other naughty players in the game.

I don't like that club bans can be used in international matches, particularly friendlies, but I think it's difficult in RL to implement bans that only count in one club competition. It would be unfair to miss out on a WCC because of one incident (though Jeff Lima did in 2011 after Wilkin's "sir, sir that man was nasty to me"icon_wink.gif, but what would happen if a player was in the middle of an 8 game ban or similar. Could you really justify a system where someone is in the middle of a long term SL ban for serious breach of discipline but could then be allowed to play in a WCC or CC final, for example?

I can’t see what all the surprise is all about in some peoples posts TBH, when I got home and watched the incident again I must say it did not look as bad as I first thought at the time, and I would have thought a yellow card sufficient punishment on the night. I’m sure the WCC also played a part in the panel’s decision too. It also strikes me there is a little hypocrisy in some post from other clubs fans who seem to want to bring back hanging whenever punishment is given to a Wigan player. My mind goes back to last year’s GF and the state of a Blake Green’s eye at the end of the game and the attitude of some people then.