Courtney Lawes Cited

Happyman42 · 12-09-2011 10:44AM #1

Anybody know of a link to the incident?

http://www.irishtimes.com/sports/rugby/2011/0912/1224303981514.html

GerM · 12-09-2011 10:53AM

I'd be surprised if a suspension resulted. It was clumsy but it can be argued that he was just trying to push him into touch. There was certainly an element of nastiness in it but it's a hard one to prove so I think he'll walk free. There's a ban coming for that bloke some time soon though. He is a repeat culprit when it comes to late borderline hits.

endabob1 · 12-09-2011 11:09AM

I'd agree with that GerM, he was involved in a few incidents, as he always is, but difficult to prove it was malicious, in that specific case if definitely looked more clumsy
than deliberate.

jacothelad · 12-09-2011 11:12AM

I'm surprised he wasn't cited for his late, deliberate shoulder charge into the back ribs of Tiesi (I think). It was a deliberate, despicable act of foul play, something for which he is becoming known.

fitz · 12-09-2011 11:20AM

jacothelad wrote: »

I'm surprised he wasn't cited for his late, deliberate shoulder charge into the back ribs of Tiesi (I think). It was a deliberate, despicable act of foul play, something for which he is becoming known.

Exactly, and it's resulted in Tiesi missing the rest of the tournament.

GerM · 12-09-2011 11:46AM

jacothelad wrote: »

I'm surprised he wasn't cited for his late, deliberate shoulder charge into the back ribs of Tiesi (I think). It was a deliberate, despicable act of foul play, something for which he is becoming known.

I'd love to see him cited for it but he will never be unless it's blatantly late. He has learned these tricks and become very good at it, especially the late hit on a kicker. He did it several times throughout the season. The malice in it can be seen as he rarely goes for the ball or tries to block it but goes through the planted side of the kicker. It's very dangerous and needs to be stamped out. Even when he doesn't get there he tries little niggly tricks like dropping the shoulder into Murphy in the warm up game which saw us win a penalty. He's a cheap shot merchant which is a pity because he's a superb athlete.

irishbucsfan · 12-09-2011 11:55AM

Regardless of it being late, it was an illegal shoulder charge.

There's no reason he shouldn't be suspended for it whether or not its seen as late.

PhatPiggins · 12-09-2011 11:55AM

GerM wrote: »

I'd love to see him cited for it but he will never be unless it's blatantly late. He has learned these tricks and become very good at it, especially the late hit on a kicker. He did it several times throughout the season. The malice in it can be seen as he rarely goes for the ball or tries to block it but goes through the planted side of the kicker. It's very dangerous and needs to be stamped out. Even when he doesn't get there he tries little niggly tricks like dropping the shoulder into Murphy in the warm up game which saw us win a penalty. He's a cheap shot merchant which is a pity because he's a superb athlete.

That is the most frustrating thing about Lawes. You can understand the like of Johnson,Harrison or Grewcock continually resorting to the dirty stuff as they were all in the big,slow, awkward category but Lawes is a specimen.

thomond2006 · 12-09-2011 12:07PM

As the Setanta lads said, guys like Lawes will keep at this kind of dirty **** unless the disciplinary process comes down hard on it.

mikedragon32 · 12-09-2011 01:14PM

Cheap shots, does it too often to be accidental. There was no effort to avoid contact for either the hit on the Tiese or the knees to the head of Ledesma.

It's this cynical dirty play that annoys the crap out of me.

Edited to add:

A fcuking QC representing him at the disciplinary hearing? FFS!!! Has Jonno turned into Woodward?

handsomecake · 12-09-2011 01:16PM

sure he even said in the press in the build up he was looking forward to a fight

Junior · 12-09-2011 01:28PM

There's a bit more of this around this English team of the last few years. Armitage's late hit on BOD, there seems to be a real undercurrent of doing a player if you get the chance, I don't doubt it's come from Johnson himself..

who the fug · 12-09-2011 01:31PM

mikedragon32 wrote: »

Cheap shots, does it too often to be accidental. There was no effort to avoid contact for either the hit on the Tiese or the knees to the head of Ledesma.

It's this cynical dirty play that annoys the crap out of me.

Edited to add:

A fcuking QC representing him at the disciplinary hearing? FFS!!! Has Jonno turned into Woodward?

You need them, last time London Irish sent a player without a lawyer to a hearing he got six weeks, and he was the one on the receiving end of the punches

ANXIOUS · 12-09-2011 01:37PM

Im not surprised, he strikes me as a very dirty player. He made no attempt to put his hands down to break his fall. He went in knees first.

pajunior · 12-09-2011 01:42PM

While I agree with just about everything said about Lawes here, I don't think this incident was the worst or even that bad.

He was unlucky to catch the Argentinian with his knee. Lawes was sprinting across to tackle a player but a split second before he made the tackle another English player takes the Argentinian down, as he falls, Lawes hits him.

I wouldn't like to see Lawes banned for this because it could have been accidental and could happen to any player. In fact he had a worse one in the very same game (shouldering a player from behind).

sock puppet · 12-09-2011 01:51PM

jacothelad wrote: »

I'm surprised he wasn't cited for his late, deliberate shoulder charge into the back ribs of Tiesi (I think). It was a deliberate, despicable act of foul play, something for which he is becoming known.

Looked like a perfectly good tackle to me though it was a bit late.

chris85 · 12-09-2011 02:51PM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zG9f-dMFJ0

He does lead in with the knee.

Ardillaun · 12-09-2011 02:52PM

GerM wrote: »

I'd be surprised if a suspension resulted. It was clumsy but it can be argued that he was just trying to push him into touch. There was certainly an element of nastiness in it but it's a hard one to prove so I think he'll walk free. There's a ban coming for that bloke some time soon though. He is a repeat culprit when it comes to late borderline hits.

Agreed. He reminds me of Delon Armitage in that regard.

MungBean · 12-09-2011 03:44PM

He led with the knee, he's arms were no where near the player he was tackling. Only thing that will save him is that he'll argue he over ran the tackle. But I doubt he'll include the fact that having over run the tackle he deliberately dropped in the knee to make contact.

He should be suspended for the duration of the world cup.

SuprSi · 12-09-2011 03:44PM

See the thing is if he did that in any other area of the pitch, he'd be called up on it. There's trying to push somebody out to touch, and there's trying to hurt them. If he had slid in maybe it wouldn't have been so bad, but I don't think his knees touch the ground before hitting the player.

I agree about Armitage - he caught Sexton late in Twickenham last year after he sent Bowe through for a try, and I believe he did something similar the first time England played in Croke Park, which irked the Irish lads somewhat!

wixfjord · 12-09-2011 03:55PM

Courtney is from the Northampton school of tackling obviously.
There was another late one before that where he was borderline aswell.

CatFromHue · 12-09-2011 04:06PM

He lead with the knees in a tackle he didn't need to commit as the Argy was already in touch. He also made contact with the head and left the Argy in a bad way. If you ask me this is a no brainer. He should be banned.

DM360 · 12-09-2011 04:06PM

Skunkle wrote: »

He should be suspended for the duration of the world cup.

I agree, fair is fair. He denies someone their World Cup and in turn his should be cut short, albeit for a different incident. I thought the Ledesma "tackle" was deliberate, the Argentine was clearly going down and out of play. Plus as someone mentioned, he doesn't slide in, instead just throws himself knees-first.

The Tiesi incident wasn't as bad, still malicious though and could be applied during the citing as it shows repeat offences of recklessness and/or dangerous tackling.

However I wouldn't be hopeful about him missing more than 3 games. I'd be content if he were to sit out the rest of the group stages.

profitius · 12-09-2011 04:21PM

It was a dirty one from Lawes, not for the first time. Xavier Rush gave him some of his own medicine last season which was good to see.

Heaslip got a long suspension (rightfully so) after kneeing McKaw and Lawes was much more dangerous.

.ak · 12-09-2011 05:13PM

It's just such a pity that it was this incident that he gets cited for.. As I really can't see anyone proving that it was deliberate. And now he'll be on his best behaviour (which means he'll be more sneaky about his antics) as he'll be watched...

GerM · 12-09-2011 06:13PM

mikedragon32 wrote: »

A fcuking QC representing him at the disciplinary hearing? FFS!!! Has Jonno turned into Woodward?

Nothing unusual about that. Donal Spring, solicitor, former international and brother of Dick, represents Irish players at their hearings. In fact I believe he was the one who highlighted a legal loophole in the ML citing process several years ago that revealed the ML didn't have the authority to cite/suspend players and saw Jennings walk free.

keith16 · 12-09-2011 07:40PM

sock puppet wrote: »

Looked like a perfectly good tackle to me though it was a bit late.

I don't know, there is such a thing as hitting hard and hitting fair...Lawes doesn't hold his man in the tackle, really a dangerous charge disguised as a tackle...he appears to wrap his arms initially...

I was expecting Argentina to be a bit more dirty.

scriba · 12-09-2011 08:12PM

keith16 wrote: »

I was expecting Argentina to be a bit more dirty.

Jamie Haskell appeared to have his knickers in a twist at the end of the game, although subsequently he backed out of making any claims. The game didn't really look like boiling over at any time.

kelly70 · 12-09-2011 08:34PM

Hopefully Lawes gets what he deserves. I am sure Johnson is proud of him.

thomond2006 · 12-09-2011 08:37PM

kelly70 wrote: »

Hopefully Lawes gets what he deserves. I am sure Johnson is proud of him.

:rolleyes:

keith16 · 12-09-2011 08:39PM

scriba wrote: »

Jamie Haskell appeared to have his knickers in a twist at the end of the game, although subsequently he backed out of making any claims. The game didn't really look like boiling over at any time.

Spotted that, think I might have heard him shout something about "the eyes" through the ref's mic?? ITV commentators were falling over themselves apologising for "the language"!

Courtney Lawes Cited

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