The explanation and rationale for bans handed down to Crusaders prop Owen Franks and Blues lock Hayden Triggs are flawed at best - a joke at worst.
It's hard to know where to start, but lets start by giving judicial officer Robert Stelzner a pat on the back for giving Highlanders prop Kane Hames an enforced five week holiday.
Hames punched Crusaders lock Dominic Bird in the face during their Super Rugby derby in Dunedin.
Bird was defenceless lying at the bottom of a heap of bodies when Hames decided to attack him from above. It was unprovoked and left Bird with a badly damaged eye socket.
Stelzner considered the punch in the mid-range of offending, gave Hames seven weeks due to the damage he caused, then cut back to five for guilt and remorse.
Fair enough.
But if Stelzner got off to a solid start, his next two rulings were difficult to follow.
Triggs, cited for punching Stormers No 8 Duane Vermeulen during the Blues loss in Cape Town, was suspended for just one week.
Triggs retaliatory attack was deemed at the low-range entry point for offending, but where things got odd was the justification for reducing the ban from two weeks to one.
"The adverse effect of the player's actions on his own team's prospects of winning by his being ordered off at a relatively early part of the match, after his team had been awarded a penalty which could potentially have put the Blues in the lead, further played a role in recommending the sanction," Stelzner wrote in his ruling.
So, if the Blues had gone on to win, would Triggs have got two weeks? Does the severity of offending change depending on the score at the time? Or the final result? Or what happened during the immediate play before you punch someone?
The logic seems bizarre.
And so does Franks' two week suspension for twice slamming his arm into the head of Highlanders prop Josh Hohneck at Forsyth Barr Stadium.
"The player submitted that he was attempting to remove the Highlanders player from the wrong side of maul," Stelzner wrote.
"His intention was to remove the player, who was quite [a bit] bigger than him, by grabbing him around the chest which would require some force, then using his bodyweight to attempt to force his opponent down and away from the ball."
Hohneck is 1.90m and 118kg. Franks is 1.85m and 118kg. That's just 5cm difference.
And while it's plausible Franks was trying to remove Hohneck from the maul in the first instance, once he'd pulled his opponent to the ground it is difficult to understand what his second strike was trying to achieve.
The judiciary found Franks had been "reckless", but that his offending was "not intentional". A third week was added to his suspension, but taken off due to his long and blemish free record.
Whatever the case, his two week ban seems lenient compared to Hames' five. Even more so when a Crusaders training match during their bye round has been included in Franks' suspension.
With top All Blacks already having their playing minutes restricted in World Cup year, as well as two enforced rest weeks, it is difficult to understand how, or why, Franks would be adding a training match into his schedule.
