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Tigers veteran James Tamou’s reduced sentence for a calling referee Ben Cummins “f***ing incompetent” has been slammed as “outrageous”.
The 33-year-old’s grade three contrary conduct charge was successfully downgraded after he pleaded guilty on Tuesday night, meaning he will be able to potentially play his last game in front of Tigers fans at Leichhardt Oval.
The Daily Telegraph’s Buzz Rothfield and NRL360 co-host Paul Kent came out swinging, calling for the “good bloke” defence to be scrapped.
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Members of the rugby league community, while conceding his referee spray was wrong, voiced their support for the veteran, including Phil Gould who called for the NRL to suspend the penalty due to his “immediate remorse” and “exemplary career”.
“I think it is outrageous, I don’t know when you take the character of a person into account when you are handing down a suspension like this one, we all heard what he said, it was disgraceful and we need to look after the referees,” Rothfield said on NRL360.
“You can’t take the quality of person into it.”
“This is my issue with having ex-players on the judiciary panel, they are conned by the fool’s gold of the argument he is a great bloke, he is coming to the end of his career,” Kent said.
“We will give him the good bloke ruling, what happens if the next time a bloke goes in there and he argues character.
“What metric do we apply to work out if he is a good enough or bad enough character to consider a reduction.”
Meanwhile, The Australia’s Brent Read believed character defence should be allowed in the NRL judiciary — with character references being a factor in the court of law.
“I actually don’t mind it, because in a court of law, they take into account character references,” Read said.
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“To determine how long they get sentenced for, so what is the difference?
“Jimmy (Tamou) fronted up the moment after that, fronted up and said he had done the wrong thing and apologised profusely for it, he has had a career where he has never done this thing before, it is completely out of character.
“The more I think about it, the more I think I applaud this man.”
NRL referees are reportedly “filthy” Tamou’s sentence was reduced, signalling a lack of support for the refereeing group.
“I think you’ll find the NRL referees, I am told they are absolutely filthy on the lack of support for the officials,” Rothfield said.
“That is rubbish, Andrew Abdo and Peter V’landys have this year supported the referees more than any official I can remember in the game’s history,” Read said.
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“For them to turn around and say they are not getting support from the NRL is rubbish, absolute rubbish.”
“The judiciary felt sorry for a bloke, felt like they would give him a week off,” Kent said.
“The good bloke defence cannot be a part of the judicial process.”
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