@bovidae said in Force v Reds:
I think they have changed the rules to avoid club games counting for a suspension.
This was one of the changes made ahead of the 2017 SR season:
In the determination of an incident and the handing down of any sanctions, the committee will now have the ability to exclude any regular season Super Rugby byes as part of a meaningful sanction. This is a significant change and will ensure all sanctions issued during Super Rugby are treated consistently across all teams.
https://super.rugby/superrugby/news/new-super-rugby-judiciary-process-unveiled/
It seems the Judiciary in the recent cases in SR AU considers missing club rugby games as part of a "meaningful sanction", or the Juriciary Process introduced in 2017 is no longer applied.