Sea Eagles CEO slams judiciary system

  • We had an issue with background services between march 10th and 15th or there about. This meant the payment services were not linking to automatic upgrades. If you paid for premium membership and are still seeing ads please let me know and the email you used against PayPal and I cam manually verify and upgrade your account.

Berkeley_Eagle

Current Status: 24/7 Manly Fan
Sea Eagles CEO slams judiciary system
By Steve Jancetic
19:40 AEST
http://wwos.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=624741

Manly chief executive Grant Mayer has called on rugby league to "grow up" in the face of an administrative bungle which threatens to rub Steve Matai out of this weekend's final round of the NRL.

Matai has been charged `twice' by the NRL match review committee for a careless high tackle in Monday night's 28-10 win over Gold Coast, a victory which gave the Sea Eagles the upper hand in the race for the minor premiership.

The first charge came through with only one prior offence, which would have allowed Matai to escape suspension with an early guilty plea.

But a revised charge sheet issued two hours later by the NRL added a second prior offence, which saw Matai's points penalty rise enough to trigger a one-match ban.

The `forgotten' offence was the two-match ban Matai copped from the Rugby League International Federation after he was sent off for a high shot on Australian centre Mark Gasnier in last year's end of season trans-Tasman Test.

Matai missed two pre-season trials as a result of the ban, but it now threatens to haunt the Sea Eagles for a third game.

"The murkiness around the two systems is certainly challenging to us," Mayer said.

"The oversight happened in the first place because there's no direct correlation between the NRL and the international federation.

"It's a clear case that our game has got to grow up and get bigger than this.

"The fact that there's such murkiness around the judiciary system confirms to me more than ever that our game's got to be under one banner.

"At this time of year, one week out from the finals, the only one suffering from this is the Sea Eagles based on a charge that happened in October 2007."

The Sea Eagles spent Tuesday in meetings with club board member and lawyer Geoff Bellew as they sought an avenue for appeal.

Manly are level on 36 competition points with Melbourne heading into the final round, but are ahead on the ladder thanks to an eight point lead in points differential.

It means the battle for the minor premiership will come down to the last game of the regular season, when Manly travel to Penrith and the Storm host South Sydney.

Mayer claimed the fact the club had no representation when Matai was charged after last year's Test meant the Sea Eagles should not continue to be punished for the offence.

NRL match review committee chairman Greg McCallum issued the Test charge, but rather than giving it a number grading, it was presented as a mid-range careless high tackle.

Asked for his recommendation, McCallum told the international hearing he believed a three-match ban was sufficient. The judiciary eventually settled for a two game ban.

"There was no charge sheet associated with it and there was no recourse really for the club," Mayer said.

"We were prepared to accept the charge for Steve from last night's game, and we took the early plea, we lodged that under the initial charge.

"Because of the administration error, that changes everything.

"We accept the charge, our concern is around the loading, in particular the second game being the Test match.

"We're going for the minor premiership.

"We're now going to be potentially without a player, one of our biggest attacking weapons in Steve Matai may not be there.

"We're going to fight this all the way to the end to make sure that the lack of clarity is cleared up."

The issue is unlikely to find it's way to the NRL judiciary on Wednesday night, but it will already be a busy night at NRL headquarters with Wade McKinnon and Matt Hilder to appear on separate spitting charges.

Warriors fullback McKinnon is accused of spitting at touch judge Brett Suttor while Hilder was charged with spitting on Melbourne winger Anthony Quinn.
 
Good on Manly standing up for this issue. It certainly is a joke, a bit like the video ref last evening who spent most of his time trying to find reasons to deny tries.
 
Imagine the uproar if this had happened in the match preceding the Grand Final!

The NRL just continue to keep shooting themselves in the foot.
 
Sack Gallop, restructure at the top of the game is the go  Get an outside 'change agent' group to supervise the lot of them.  The insider group won't do it, way to threatening of its power.  The judiciary system is a joke.  Very smelly is the News Ltd assist of the Matai incident.     
 
maybe we should start a groupFund project and start our own game based on the ARL since this is now an SL comp
 
As long as I can have 51% of ownership of the new company and rig it anyway I see fit, while looking after my own interests in a manor that would be frond on in any other business environment by the ACCC I’m in.
 
missing_something link said:
As long as I can have 51% of ownership of the new company and rig it anyway I see fit, while looking after my own interests in a manor that would be frond on in any other business environment by the ACCC I’m in.

Well the idea of Group funding is that there is no majority share.
 
imho - the problem would be solved if Matai stopped hitting the heads of opposing players. I understand the frustration with all the different loadings and don't know why it is so complicated but if he didn't do a 'crime' then he wouldn't keep trying to fight the time.

I thought there was a lift in the niggle level our players dished out to the Titans. Probably the worst was Glenn putting a knee into a player's calf - the same 'crime' we want Melbourne hung, drawn and quartered for. It may have been an accident but I'm not so sure - anyway the player could hardly walk afterwards. If we want a full squad each week then Matai, Cuthbo, King, Perry, Choc etc are just going to have to play it hard and tough and keep the crap out of their games.
 
If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

Melbourne get away with it, so we can expect to as well.

I don't mind leading the whinging when we get pulled up on it either. One set of rules for everyone. There's no point us cutting out the crap if other clubs continue with it.
 

Members online

Latest posts

Team P W L PD Pts
3 3 0 48 6
3 2 1 45 4
3 2 1 28 4
3 2 1 22 4
3 2 1 15 4
3 2 1 14 4
2 1 1 13 4
3 2 1 10 4
2 1 1 6 4
3 2 1 -3 4
3 1 2 0 2
3 1 2 -5 2
3 1 2 -15 2
3 1 2 -22 2
3 1 2 -36 2
2 0 2 -56 2
3 0 3 -64 0
Back
Top Bottom