Joe Tapine must be scratching his head and wondering why he missed two games for doing exactly what Billy Slater did.
I can picture the Canberra Raiders second-rower now, sitting on a beach on Koh Samui, getting a massage and sipping on a glass with a tiny umbrella in it.
"Why?" he asks no one in particular as his index finger rubs against the top of his head.
Canberra Raiders forward Joe Tapine was suspended for a shoulder charge on Matt Dufty.
The simple answer, Joe, is you're not Slater and you weren't going to miss the grand final.
The NRL match review committee charged both with a grade-one shoulder charge – Tapine on St George Illawarra fullback Matt Dufty and Slater on Cronulla winger Sosaia Feki – yet one will play and the other didn't.
The only difference? Slater's a legend of the game and his suspension would mean an early retirement and missing the NRL decider – and a shot at winning back-to-back premierships.
That's it. Forget all the arguments about Feki changing direction, a Slater hand somewhere in the vicinity of the Sharks flyer and the fact Slater apparently ran at 33 kilometres per hour at training once.
They're all Chewbaccas. Or, for anyone who's never heard of South Park, red herrings.
The NRL judiciary panel simply cleared Slater because they didn't want to be the ones to kill Bambi.
I could make a similar case for Tapine to have been cleared with a couple of Chewbaccas of my own.
Tapine was left with no option but to bump Dufty once the Dragons fullback decided to kick.
Given the custodian no longer had the ball, the Kiwi international could no longer tackle Dufty or risk giving away a penalty.
Since contact was inevitable – let's say Tapine was once clocked doing 27km/h at training (not as fast as Slater but still reasonably brisk) – it left the Green Machine second rower with no option but to brace for impact.
Hence the shoulder-to-shoulder contact was simply Tapine protecting himself.
The defence rests. He's cleared. And now we can get stuck into the mini bar on our private jet home.
But there's one slight problem – I apologise in advance for being the grand final grinch – and that's the small matter of the rules.
If you look at the definition of a shoulder charge it's when a player doesn't use their arms or hands to tackle and they use force.
Tick and tick. Ditto for Tapine. Which is why they both should've been banned.
It doesn't matter that a grand final was at stake.
Storm fullback Billy Slater got off for a shoulder charge that looked a lot like Tapine’s.
Nowhere in the rules does it say there's provision for the judiciary to let people off just because they're going to miss out on the biggest game of the season.
Judiciary chairman Geoff Bellew specifically said emotion couldn't be a consideration in the panel making their decision.
Yet, that's what they did.
Why is it fair for Tapine to miss the Raiders' matches against Manly and Penrith?
It isn't. The judiciary panel probably owe Tapine a drink. Make sure it's got an umbrella in it.
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