The Rugby Football League have suspended Wigan forward Ben Flower for 6 months for his vicious assault on St Helens playmaker Lance Hohaia in the opening minutes of the 2014 Super League Grand Final.
The majority of this 6 month suspension will be served during the off season, meaning Flower looks like he will miss, at most, around 12 matches.
When you consider the world wide attention this assault has gained, with news agencies around the world carrying footage of the attack, the RFL’s suspension is completely inadequate. The RFL have once again failed to protect the integrity of the sport. After 48 hours of the game in the UK being attacked because of this blatant act of thuggery the RFL have come up with a trumped up suspension that even when considered over a 6 month period is simply not harsh enough.
I am not surprised by any of this. This type of pathetic display by the RFL is just par for the course as this stage.
Just last week the RFL fined Leeds Rhinos chairman Gary Hetherington £1,000 for comments he made about the way the RFL handled the Zak Hardaker discrimination case. They fined a millionaire £1,000….
Ben Flower will be back playing for Wigan in April 2015. Another black eye for Rugby League.
St Helens have announced that they will not be looking to take the matter any further which means police will not be involved as had been talked about quite a bit over the last 48 hours.
A lot of Rugby League supporters in Great Britain believe the media has it in for the sport. They believe media companies do their best to hold the sport back. They believe Rugby Union and Soccer go out of their way to prevent Rugby League from expanding.
The truth of the matter is that Rugby League in Great Britain doesn’t need any help. The Rugby Football League does an outstanding job at hurting the game through terrible decisions like this on a month to month basis.
To think that it was only a couple of weeks ago that Super League clubs were concerned about the impact Todd Carney’s signing would have on the competition….
Unbelievable…
It’s the first ban of Ben Flower’s entire professional career, but it was a horrible act and a ban of around 12 games would have been sufficient. Making it 6 months starting immediately satisfies the media, whose coverage has been at times hysterical. Most of those commenting know nothing about the sport anyway and will forget about it again within a month at most.
The incident wasn’t as bad as Duncan McRae’s infamous assault on Ronan O’Gara, which somehow only got him a 7 week ban in rugby.
All parties have dealt with the incident in the right way.