I’ll start by nailing my colours well and truly to the mast, I’ve never really liked the on-report system. For me it is an easy cop-out for the weak referee; punishes the player after the event rather than benefitting the team offended against; and is a wholly unsatisfactory way to deal with incidents which incense supporters, rile players, and potentially effect results.

It is time we had a re-think and encouraged our referees to be empowered on the pitch and make the decisions to punish the offender’s on-the-spot ensuring that their team pays the penalty for their indiscretions.

Let us take round six of Super League XIX, the round held last weekend, as an example of just why the current approach to bad discipline is not working.

The disciplinary opted to look at thirty-two incidents from the seven games played, with five of these resulting in charges against the players involved.

Of those five, the most talked about in recent days have been offences by Saints’ Kyle Amor and John Wilkin. In the fifth minute of the game there was a reckless tackle by Wilkin on on-loan Chris Riley. The disciplinary issued a two game suspension, indicating to most that the offence was severe enough to have merited a sending off. While we’ll never know whether Saints would have rallied without him to secure victory late in the second half, you do have to wonder if they would have taken the points playing with twelve men for seventy-five minutes.

In the same game, Kyle Amor was also found guilty of a reckless tackle, although this was in the seventy-fifth minute and would have likely had less bearing on the final outcome of the game.

The beneficiaries of these offences will be the sides that face Saints over the coming couple of weeks as they won’t have to face Wilkin and Amor, but there is no benefit whatsoever to the Wildcats, in fact, just the opposite.

Effects on the weekends other games were less obvious for the remaining three players who received suspensions over the weekend.

Justin Poore got his second suspension of the season for a dangerous throw in the 65th minute of his sides 16-0 win over the Bradford Bulls, and you would expect that his side would have held on to the win, even if he’d been dismissed at the time.

Across the city, Hull FC’s Gareth Ellis put in an early guilty plea (EGP) and took a two game suspension for an 18th minute shoulder charge as his side were nilled by Widnes. The failure of Ben Thaler to send-off Widnes’ Willie Isa for striking in the fifty-second minute ensured that the visitors had thirteen men on the field until the end of the game and managed to hold on for a narrow 7-0 win.

So what can be done.

I suggest a simple two point plan to benefit the side offended against, rather than the side committing the offences.

The referees need to be encouraged to take action on the day and brandish their cards where offences are clear. So far this season twenty-five Super League players have been charged with offences by the RFL while to the best of my recollection there has not been a single red card (I stand to be corrected). The only possible explanation is that referees are told not to send-off players but to leave the decision to the disciplinary panel.

A more radical idea, in a sport which is used to adopting radical ideas, would be to punish the offending side where the disciplinary committee issues a ban (or a player accept an EGP) by making them play the next fixture against the side offended against with reduced players for proportional minutes.

For example, in Super League; if Team A, playing against Team B, has a player banned (but not sent off) for an incident in the fiftieth minute, the next time that the two sides play then Team A have to play the first thirty minutes with twelve men. This correctly punishes the offending team and compensates the team offended against.

In a season of relegation and promotion it is conceivable that two league points could make the difference between survival and oblivion. Had the referee done the job of the disciplinary, would Wakefield Wildcats have two more points in the bank in their bid to buy survival, and would Hull FC be in the top eight rather than on the brink of the bottom four?

It’s time for a good hard look at the whole process to make it fairer.