You know, if that had been a Manly player taking out Boyd like that on Saturday night.....Clint's old age body double would have been screaming blue murder about 'his' players not being protected and the Qld media would have marched on NRL HQ with flaming torches and pitch forks demanding the rule be changed and the players get more protection.
And whoever put the tackle on him would be facing a Grade 5 dangerous tackle charge.....a player like Marty Taupau would have had a Les Boyd like suspension heaped on him.
That last one may be a bit cynical, but considering how Manly seem to be on the wrong end of the stick from the NRL lately, its not beyond the realms of impossibility.
From memory in the past few years.......especially since Greenturd took over:
- Manly being threatened with ongoing fines and loss of NRL competition points after we wanted to have John Hopoate as a junior coach in a competition which is not under NRL jurisdiction. Then no less than 3 months later the Eels are basically given a slap on the wrist for their Bulldogs/Storm like salary cap rorting (well, a slap compared to what they copped). Yet we hadn't actually done anything wrong and they wanted to come down on us like a tonne of bricks.
- Tying in with doesn't-matta's rorting, the NRL allow them to force Watmough into retirement to get them under the salary cap with a bogus ruling that his injury was new, but the insurance company not being fooled puts a BIG question mark over the NRL's action. Yet Manly are forced to play 2017 with a squad of just 23 because they are dithering over the retirements of Stewart and Matai. We are also at least $1.5m down on the salary cap as a result.
- The suspensions of AFB and Kapow for shoulder charges (which I'll admit others in the NRL have copped as well), while Sam Burgess puts on 2 blatant shoulder charges in 3 games and gets away with both. For mine that was more about Burgess being a draw for England during last weeks rep round than anything else. You know its bad when even Manly and DCE haters are saying it was bogus.
And that's just off the top of my head. There are probably more.