That’ll-do-me (idiom, informal)
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- A colloquial Australian phrase indicating one has endured enough frustration with an activity or interest to re-consider continuing the activity or interest.
- A phrase indicating one’s level of outrage has reached it’s limit.
Forgive the formality but Kickoff feels the need to fully illustrate just how may fans are being turned off the game because of farcical, unfathomable decisions from both the bunker and, more tellingly, the match review committee this season.
The decision to suspend Dragons back-rower Tyson Frizell from last night’s clash with Brisbane was a new low for the game. Anyone watching, anyone who saw the countless replays, would tell you that his touch of referee Chris James was innocuous and accidental.
If we didn’t have this ridiculous charge to begin with it probably would’ve gone unnoticed completely. Even as the charge has reared it’s head this season, we’ve still seen gross inconsistency in it’s application.
Keiran Foran and James Roberts escaped suspension with early guilty pleas for coming in contact with referees over the opening three weeks. Bulldogs forward David Klemmer successfully defended the charge at the judiciary despite his contact with Ben Cummins in round two being far more confrontational and deliberate than Frizell’s.
Why, 21 weeks into the season, could Frizell not do the same? Particularly given Lachlan Coote successfully challenged the same charge four weeks ago.
In that same time-period Corey Norman, Trent Merrin, Cameron Smith, Jonathan Thurston and Jamie Soward all escaped sanction for similar incidents.
No doubt a ‘new edict’ issued to clubs by NRL CEO Tood Greenberg this week indicating a “no tolerance” policy on contact with referees explains why the panel of Chris McKenna, Mal Cochrane and Sean Garlick took just five minutes to make Frizell the sacrificial lamb to the PC farce.
Some might say given the new edict Frizell’s suspension was fair enough but, given the NRL has long been loath to make in-season changes, it’s interesting that on this miniscule of issues the chief executive was so compelled to act.
According to the MRC, Frizell’s brush of James was worse than Nathan Brown’s crotch-stomp of Agnatius Paasi in round 15. It was worse than Paul Gallen’s off the ball ‘slingshot’ tackle on an unprepared Isaac De Gois in round 17.
It was also worse than Josh Reynolds trip of Joel Thompson last week (his third tripping charge is as many seasons) and apparently it’s as bad as Martin Tapau’s high shot that knocked Jack Bird senseless in round three.
At the time of the Brown incident, MRC boss Michael Buettner told News Corp: “If we had a charge for a grade one dumb act, dog act or shit act, it would have ticked all the boxes but we’ve got to apply what sits in the judiciary code.”
If Todd Greenberg can issue a round 20 edict of “no tolerance” for even minor contact with match officials, surely he could move to stamp out “shit acts” and “dog acts” that actually do impact on the game’s image. Something is truly rotten in the state of league-land when Brown and Gallen receive “concerning act notices” for their offences while Frizell was hit with an automatic one-week suspension for his. Fans can smell it and they’re leaving in droves.