Memo to the NRL: ban the ‘prowler’ tackle, now
Columnist
By Spiro Zavos, 19 Mar 2008 Spiro Zavos is a Roar Expert
There was Craig Wing, a glamour rugby league star to kids and women, leaving the field in agony minutes after the opening of the 2008 NRL centenary premiership season.
Read about the NRL’s stance on shoulder charges
He’d been held up in a tackle by two Roosters players, then had his exposed back smashed by a shoulder charge from Riley Brown.
It was not a good look for the NRL. The Sydney Morning Herald published a letter a day or so later deploring the violence of Riley’s ‘prowler tackle.’
The term ‘prowler tackle’ was coined by Wayne Bennett, who is opposed to the tackle.
The potential third tackler prowls around the ruck area with a bad intent, a bit like a potential break-in prowler, and when the ball-carrier’s back is exposed, he charges in with the intention of hurting him.
The NRL match-review committee cleared Brown.
Roy Masters explained why. The prowler tackle is legal. It is difficult under the present laws to stop it. Referees are faced with calling ‘held’ very early in the tackle struggle, and impeding the possibilities of off-loads. If they wait for some seconds, the ball-carrier can be held and turned and then prowler-tackled.
It’s clear that the prowler tackle, like the infamous ‘grapple’ tackle of last year, should be banned.
If it isn’t, the NRL is going to be faced, sooner or later, with being sued for allowing criminal assaults on the rugby league field. And more star ball-carriers like Craig Wing are going to be badly injured.
Here are my modest proposals for getting rid of the prowler tackle:
1. Ban all shoulder charges from rugby league. The shoulder charge should have no place in sport. It is a cheap shot, an assault that can cause serious injuries to the recipient.
2. If there are only two players in the tackle, stripping the ball should be allowed. This would balance up the options of the attack and the defence and introduce some needed unpredictability into rugby league.
3. The third or fourth tackler, providing they use arms in the tackle, should be able to complete a dominant tackle but no stripping would be allowed once they make their tackle.
What are your views on these proposals?
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The Answer said | March 19th 2008 @ 3:03am | Report comment
Ban the shoulder charge? Let’s not lose our heads here.
The “prowler” tackle is a cheap shot, but it is very different to a standard shoulder charge.
I can think of very few injuries that come from honest run of the mill shoulder charges. What is more the crowd and the players love them.
The only real problem is when they go wrong, players can leave a big hole in the defensive line. So you carry them out at your own risk.
Don’t go throwing the baby out with the bath water.
S.O.S – Save Our Shoulder charges!
matty p said | March 19th 2008 @ 3:58am | Report comment
Spiro, that was a disgraceful act, but I think shoulder charges are a defining point of league. They are accepted as part of the one on one nature of the game – and that’s where they are appropriate. Not as cowardly charges on an immobile player. So, why not let the first contact be a should charge, but then any other defenders joining the tackle must not use a shoulder charge?
The Boar said | March 19th 2008 @ 7:56am | Report comment
Get real Spiros. One tackle in 100 years does not define a game.
sheek said | March 19th 2008 @ 9:08am | Report comment
Souths coach Jason Taylor took the moral high ground, arguing parents won’t want their kids playing rugby league, if injuries like that sustained to Craig Wing are accepted from “normal” tackles.
However, I can’t recall Taylor’s reaction last year when one of his forwards belted Braith Anasta without any apparent provocation.
The NRL like to promote their code as the toughest of all. I wonder if the NRL will still think this way, when most of the leading players who pull people through the gate, sponsorship, TV, etc are out injured through over-vigorous, sometimes blatantly late & deliberate tackles.
The NRL appear to leading through public opinion at the moment, which demonstrates poor leadership, & an unwillingness to make the tough calls. Sure, listen to public opinion, but be willing to put player safety first.
Steve Kaless said | March 19th 2008 @ 9:30am | Report comment
Spiro,
With talk like that you’ll be voted off the island.
Heather McCartney-Mills has made more sense of late.
Rugby League is a tough game, but that should hardly be breaking news to anyone. Riley Brown was lucky, he exposed a loophole which was cynically exploited, but t will soon be closed and the shoulder charge will remain a thing of beauty from which the great pain comes to the commentators vocal cords when he exclaims “WHOAHHHH!”
It would be outlawing the ruck because of stomping.
The NRL facing criminal charges? It already has thanks to Jarrod McCracken, but every sport the same and when it happens regularly we may as well all go home, turn the oven on full blast and end it all.
cosmos forever said | March 19th 2008 @ 10:15am | Report comment
Just through on the wires that the NRL has clamped down (and in a sensible way I might add).
Shoulder charges on players already being contained by a tackler will be deemed to be dangerous (or at least citeable so that a review and punishment can take place).
People still get the shoulder charges but just not on players already wrapped up by tacklers.
Seems like a pretty good outcome to me.
Good point about Taylor Sheek. I was actually just drafting a Roar of the Crowd about the role of coaches in this.
Rugby League players rarely do anything that they haven’t been trained in or instructed to do. The days of natural talent or violence expressing themselves are pretty much gone (aside from the rare cases of a Bowman or Slater for the talent and our old friend Morely on the violence side!).
That means that all of these growwlers, prowlers, grapples etc are devised, taught to players and built into game plans by – wait for it – coaches.
Simple solution. If incidents occur from a particular camp – fine or suspend the coach. I guarantee the tactics would disapear overnight if a coach was help responsible.
Seems to me at the moment a bunch of pretty smart blokes (coaching staff) tell a pretty dumb bloke (player) what to do and it is the dumb bloke who is held responsible.
Shift the responsibility (except for clear individual behaviour) and the game will follow.
Along this line – I always wondered why, when the grapple was in the firing line in 2006, that the NRL didn’t just tape training sessions and then call in every coach who sponsored and oversaw wresting training. Why not just go to the source instead of waiting for something terrible to happen on the field.
They call it Proactive Compliance in an organisation I used to work for
eric said | March 19th 2008 @ 11:24am | Report comment
You’ve got them going Spiro. Browns charge was legal as the rules stand, but that type of charge clearly should be banned, and it appears the NRL have done so. Why has it taken 100 years?
To blame coaches for seeking an advantage is ridiculous. That is their job. Tape training sessions? As if a club would stand for that! What a minefield.
The pro-activism should come from the NRL, looking at the game and the implications of laws and the playing trends, and adjusting the laws accordingly.
Ian Noble said | March 19th 2008 @ 12:26pm | Report comment
Spiro
In recent games of league I have seen, I have not witnessed such a blantant case of dangerous play. I blame the officials , in that a late shoulder charge with no intent of tackling properly but with the sole intent of injuring the player is dangerous play. As in all games players should respect their fellow players and if in the NRL it is considered the norm, then it spoils the game as a spectacle.
If the fans in OZ crave for cheap shots then perhaps they would better off watching wrestling, otherwise League will turn into a game of cheap shots and thuggery. It is not the laws but the approach by coaches to the game and if a coach particularly incites players to go out with the intent of physically damaging a particular player, he should be held to account.
Of course, the star players will always be targeted and they will be prepared for a rough ride but cheap shots are cowardly and reflect poorly on the NRL.
If it continues through to RLWC2008 and in the games v NZ and England it could be a big turnoff for many who want to see a spectacular tournament of hard freeflowing rugby without thuggery.
NickF said | March 19th 2008 @ 1:56pm | Report comment
I am disgustedby the performance of the NRL. They clear Brown of the charge and then take the moral high ground and the get on their pulpit and “put clubs on notice that a repeat of the vicious shoulder charge will not be tolerated”.
Surely they can take this to the judiciary and judge it on “intent”, as I feel there was intent to injure not tackle in this case. I don’t think we need to ban the shoulder charge. When used in a proper way, head on and below the neck is OK. But if the ref sees a tackle he doesn’t like he can always put the tackler on report, and the judiciary should have the courage to see foul play for what it is and suspend players for this kind of action.
The Link said | March 19th 2008 @ 4:53pm | Report comment
Spiro, Craig Wing said it himself that he’s a fan of the shoulder charge, so please no baby out with the League bathwater here. Actually the shoulder charge is also reasonably prevelant in AFL, albeit in a different way, with little talk of it being dangerous there to my knowledge.
Its a great part of the game, think of the theatre of Harragon v Carrol and in recent times SBW v anyone not in a Dogs jersey.