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https://www.melbournestorm.com.au/news/ ... arly-plea/

Melbourne Storm and Jahrome Hughes have reluctantly accepted the early plea and grading for his contrary conduct charge from Saturday night.

Whilst both Jahrome and the club fully support and totally endorse the protection of referees in our game, we believe Saturday’s incident was an accident.

Further, we believe the contact was unavoidable and the grading on the incident was too harsh given the circumstances where Jahrome was concentrating on making an important tackle in the context of the game and not fixated on the movements of the referee.

Jahrome has reached out to referee, Chris Butler, to apologise and reinforce that his actions were unintentional.

We are disappointed that an unsuccessful challenge on the grading would have also resulted in an extra week suspension.

We acknowledge the system is in place to avoid judiciary hearings but, in this case, we believe the risk of the penalty for contesting the charge is too high considering the circumstances of the incident.

In the end, the threat of an extra week suspension on top of our club’s bye next weekend was the overriding factor in our decision but we don’t believe this is a fair outcome.

Pretty soft from the club if I’m being honest, they believed it was unavoidable and had a good case and the public and media backlash has been huge, he would have got off for sure, even had Luai’s incident as precedence.

Strange one from the powers that be, but we move, next man up, Munster might have to play now

Can't trust the media not to spin it against us though

Papenhuyzen23 wrote: ↑Mon Mar 18, 2024 7:30 pm Pretty soft from the club if I’m being honest, they believed it was unavoidable and had a good case and the public and media backlash has been huge, he would have got off for sure, even had Luai’s incident as precedence.

Strange one from the powers that be, but we move, next man up, Munster might have to play now

Nah, he was never going to get off.
Annesley took the line today in the weekly review that it is never acceptable to touch a ref. It was all done and dusted before it even goes to a hearing.

TC wrote: ↑Mon Mar 18, 2024 9:03 pm

Papenhuyzen23 wrote: ↑Mon Mar 18, 2024 7:30 pm Pretty soft from the club if I’m being honest, they believed it was unavoidable and had a good case and the public and media backlash has been huge, he would have got off for sure, even had Luai’s incident as precedence.

Strange one from the powers that be, but we move, next man up, Munster might have to play now

Nah, he was never going to get off.
Annesley took the line today in the weekly review that it is never acceptable to touch a ref. It was all done and dusted before it even goes to a hearing.

It's pretty pathetic that the nrl isn't prepared to admit the ref played as much a part of that situation as jahrome did. They both made a mistake, but only one is getting any official punishment.

Criticising the ref is crazy. Maybe he should have known the surroundings a little better but he looks in a normal position to me.

I think Jahrome totally screwed himself by the obvious push/shove. Can’t claim it was an accident after doing that.

I thought the club would plead guilty but contest the grading. I assume there is a reason they didn’t go down that path.

blazza18 wrote: ↑Mon Mar 18, 2024 11:53 pm Criticising the ref is crazy. Maybe he should have known the surroundings a little better but he looks in a normal position to me.

I think Jahrome totally screwed himself by the obvious push/shove. Can’t claim it was an accident after doing that.

Not really that crazy, it was poor situational awareness and positioning on the ref's part. They have a duty to not impact play, the same as the players have a duty to pass backwards, not be offside etc. Being able to remain close to the action without impacting play a skill that is vital to refereeing

It was a no win situation for jahrome. He could have played for the obstruction, but no guarantee it would have been awarded. He could have tried to go around the ref, only to arrive to late. When you've got normally anti Melbourne commentators saying jahromes a bit hard done by, that says plenty.

Lennart Bedrager wrote: ↑Tue Mar 19, 2024 6:51 am

blazza18 wrote: ↑Mon Mar 18, 2024 11:53 pm Criticising the ref is crazy. Maybe he should have known the surroundings a little better but he looks in a normal position to me.

I think Jahrome totally screwed himself by the obvious push/shove. Can’t claim it was an accident after doing that.

Not really that crazy, it was poor situational awareness and positioning on the ref's part. They have a duty to not impact play, the same as the players have a duty to pass backwards, not be offside etc. Being able to remain close to the action without impacting play a skill that is vital to refereeing

It was a no win situation for jahrome. He could have played for the obstruction, but no guarantee it would have been awarded. He could have tried to go around the ref, only to arrive to late. When you've got normally anti Melbourne commentators saying jahromes a bit hard done by, that says plenty.

Agreed.
And in any case, it was in no wise worth 2 weeks.

Also it leaves a vile taste in the mouth when you consider that Luai deliberately shoved a ref out of the way last season to get to a try celebration and only got fined.
I guess after slapping Luai (see a trend here?) on the wrist for a high shot and a trip this week and totally ignoring Latrell's unapologetic foul mouthed press conference, Annesley felt the need to show that the NRL is tough on offenders.

It’s actually hard to imagine the NRL being worse at policing poor behaviours desired in and around the game…

Yeah, one of my pet peaves is throwing the ball away after an error. Should be a penalty for time wasting and instead it's just part of the game.