I missed the very start of the match, looking at that picture I'm very glad I did! Nasty nasty looking injury that one.



The Mika incident is difficult. I'm pretty sure Ganson's first reaction was a play the ball, which was changed to a penalty later (listening the the ref on Sky can be problematic with all the babble over it so there's a good chance I'm wrong). Completely unintentional, just went for an aggressive tackle, and if Amor hadn't stepped there wouldn't have been a head collision. But ultimately there was contact with the head, so I suppose a penalty isn't a bad decision. Thing is though 'contact' is made with the head in a hell of a lot of tackles, be it in the wrestle on the way to the floor, on the floor or whatever. What's the threshold that must be crossed to make it an automatic penalty? (Presumably I will be disappointed to hear the answer is 'discretionary').



Oh and teams better be extra careful when warned by Ganson by the look of things. Yay









Good, he was playing well. Seems like he wanted to go back on but was very sensibly told not to. Rugby players are mental

Pretty sure it's the tackler's responsibility to watch where he puts his head (ie, try not get sandwiched by your teammates!).

Did Poore even make contact with his head?



Was the gash caused by the collision by the way? Because it looks like after the tackle Withers gets a stud across his head (when he's laid in the floor) but it didn't get picked up on Sky.



In regards to the penalty, he's come in in an aggressive manner leading with his head in a wreckless area. Totally accidental, but he's caused that so it's a penalty.



I thought Dobson was a moron last night when it came to talking to the ref. total lack of respect. Expect that sort of thing in football. If you don't like the refs decision, talking to him like a spoilt teenager isn't going to make things better!

I like the comment in Twitter "he looks like a baseball!"

No expert on medical treatment but the quality of those stitches does not seem great. Not sure they were done by the club medic or Pinderfields but if they were done in a specialist hospital they are not done to reduce the scarring.

Awful decision for me. Head collisions happen. Those saying it is mika's responsibility to avoid contact with the head, What about the other way round if an attacking player runs "aggressively" and a defender goes for a low tackle and gets cleaned out, is that a penalty to the defending side?

It was a typical Ganson display, irratic. When is a tackle complete, it should be when the ball carrying arm touches the deck with a defender on the attacker on two occasions last night when this happened we got a try and penalty against us. When Paterson stole the ball one on one, Ganson said the tackle was complete and penalised us, but when Caro tackled a Wakey player it was clear that the ball arm touched the deck and it was clear that Caro was in contact with the player, yet he was allowed to play on.



I just wish we could have some constancy.

Not sure that a player being left unconscious is laughable but each to their own. The clash between Mika's head and Amor's jaw was accidental. However the penalty was given due to contact with the head, accidental or not....as the referee said.



Mika was put on report because the referee, as he said, was of the opinion that Mika lead with his head and its now up to the disciplinary panel to decide if he did or not. Personally, I don't think he did, I think it was an accidental clash of heads.

I'm at a loss to understand those who think contact with the head is acceptable. It doesn't matter what part of Mika made contact with Amor's head it's still a penalty. If he wants to make an aggressive tackle he could have bent his back and put a tackle in in the regular fashion. If he'd done that he'd have been lower and so not made contact with Amor's head. If it had been his arm or shoulder that hit Amor's head no-one would be saying its not a penalty and he'd probably have been sent off.

It's the responsibility of the tackler not to make contact with the attackers head.

It was an accident but still a penalty

Any contact with the head is a penalty simple as that

If it had been deemed deliberate he'd have been off the pitch!



Oh and Rover49 you need to learn the rules on what's a tackle complete and not, Ganson got those calls right.



But he was shocking for the most part.

Ganson looked an absolute mess ( overweight). Its hard to see on TV how well he's keeping up, but I don't know how you get through 80 minutes in that shape. If he managed a half decent job, fair play to him, he must have some stamina to drag that gut around. It looks bad on TV though.

nothing wrong with mikas' challenge imo, didnt think he lead with his head just unfortunate



poores' was accidental, it was unfortunate that withers got hit by two of his own players in the tackle

At the time i was incredulous at the decision to give a penalty but that was purely heat of the moment and i can understand why it was given now. Clearly not deliberate (who would tackle with their head on purpose?) but i can see Mika getting a ban for this knowing the disciplinary panel and that would be a joke