There is clearly a lot of emotion floating around over this, and for mine their are some ludicrous comments floating around in terms of Hayne's intent.
Comparisons with the Gibbs tackle are for mine not really relevant as it was a very different situation.
- Hayne is flying across in cover attacking a bouncing ball, he chooses to go down at the ball, but its too late as Goodwin is already there. Hayne tries to pull his legs under, but ends up making contact with Goodwin's head with either his knee or thigh or both as he slides in along the turf.
- Gibbs, is following a player who has the ball in hand and is in front of him who has scored. He then drops down on him with his knees. He was no where near the ball, he led with the knees in attempting to make a tackle that was late.
Look I don't know if either Gibbs or Hayne had any intent, but Gibbs is much different situation. Gibbs came from behind and was later on the scene, there was no need what so ever to lead in with the knees. Hayne was attempting to contest a loose ball situation but ended up there late and made dangerous contact.
So in my view the gibbs one was different and worse, it was a grade 2 charge, the only reason he got 3 weeks is because he challlenged the charge and was not a clean skin.
Second question though is does Hayne deserve to be charged and suspended. Well I think he should be charged with dangerous contact, but not dropping the knees. Its then whether probably its a grade one or two. Have any other fullbacks been charged this year or last year with this sort of offence??? In a similar situation??
So Hayne is guilty of something, I'm not really sure how they decide on grading, but personally I don't think there was any great deal of intent and you watch his body trying to twist to remove himself from the situation he got himself into.
I think if you look at other charges this year like gibbs (grade 2) and hindmarsh (grade 1), Hayne will probably get a grade 1 and with no record and an early guilty plea get off. Which is probably fair in my view.
Just on Keating, I think he is going to be charged (if they don't look at it properly) and then will front the judiciary and win. If you watch the footage he its not like other so called chicken wing tackles where the player gets into the wrestle and bends the arm back in order to turn the player or slow the play the ball. Keating tries to tackle a rampaging Ben Hannant on his own front own and gets half barged through. He then tries to grab something to slow him to the ground. If you watch it in replay, Keating never really has a solid grip on the arm at all. Keating ends up at the side trying to grab shoulder arm anything. Hanant arm ends up extended over keating's shoulder, and in my view accidently being trapped in an awkward position. In the end is anyone actually has hold of his hand or arm its Nathan Hindmarsh.
My view is charges for chicken wing style tackle means a player is intentionally grabbing an arm and bending it back, Keating is not doing that in fact if you watch the replay he never evens gets a proper grip on the arm. Its all accidental.
There is so much stuff in there that there is no way they could prove any intent or even that he had a proper grip on Hannant. I think it was all accidental.
So Keating no drama at all.
Hayne has a problem, but based on gibbs getting a grade 2, you could not expect hayne to get anything worse, if he gets a grade 2 he will challenge the grading. But I think maybe grade 1 and he gets off with a clean record.
Might I add based on watching plenty of replays of both incidents it would be a travesty if either player missed a GF, given what has been handed out to other incidents this season.
Just my view
