BTR,
Can't remember but I think Roberts was sued in civil proceedings by Jack, not charged or convicted of a criminal offence. It is only the latter (a conviction) that would make him a no, no for jury duty.
Must say, I do tend to agree with Fizman on the Bird incident even though I do think we do worse at the judiciary than other clubs on average. There's a certain emotive reaction to a king hit kneeing that I think makes it a loser for us to go on arguing about severity of sentence. Even if Bird had belted the crap out of Marteene with his fists, I think it would have been much much lighter, but the whole circumstances of Marteene being head down, getting up and not able to even see the knee coming made for a very very bad look. Let's be candid, it was a cat act at a stupid time image wise for the game and comes on the back of the Sharks having earnt a very bad reputation over the last few years as a pack of ill disciplined whingers led by the past master of the art form, our last coach.
Whether we like it or not, our players need to get it through their fat heads that we need to be squeaky clean for this season and next to dispel the suspicion that is now out there that ther is a bit of an attitude in our playing ranks that we're hard done by and it's OK to get shitty and brain snap with cheap shots if things aren't going our way.
I do agree that part of that attitude towards higher discipline standards, should, however, include a hard arsed attitude to going public about compalints on other teams' players getting cited like Marteene should have been. BUT, if we are going to dish that out we have to take it when one of ours deserves it.
Lastly, my wife wishes I look like Ben Affleck (and so do I) but, alas, that's about where the similarity begins and ends.
