By Untimelyzapped
November 28th 2009 @ 12:10am
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Rob Kearney and Dally M have something in common
It’d be hard to find anybody who actually saw the great Dally Messenger play, his last season being in 1913, so the evidence of his prowess is anecdotal.
But I’ve read that, apart from kicking amazing goals and being a natural ball runner, he was also famous for stopping big wingers.
Hardly a giant – he was two inches shorter than Digby Ioane and six kilos lighter – he stopped those wingers by bumping them into touch, which was legal back then.
I know that this has been discussed on The Roar already, but every time I play back Rob Kearney’s hit on Rocky, I don’t see an attempted tackle, I see a Dally-style bump, which I believe is illegal these days.
That’s a shame. Among the rules the IRU could look at, even though they remain deaf to all entreaty, is the use of the shoulder in certain situations.
In general play, tackling front, without the arms wrapping, should remain illegal. But an angled shoulder bump when a runner is close to the touchline should be considered.
I’m sure Dally will agree if it’s halftime up in heaven.
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(6)
Spiro Zavos said | November 28th 2009 @ 6:34am | Report comment
Dally Messenger also ‘invented’ heading the ball over an opposition and catching it on the run through, until the ploy was banned, He also scored tries by leaping over defenders near the try line. All his contemporaries insisted that he was ‘the Master.’ Sports writers who saw him play and compared him with stars of later era were unanimous that Messenger was the greatest rugby union/league player of them all.
Rob Kearney is no Messenger!
Gladstone said | November 28th 2009 @ 7:11am | Report comment
My grandad, gone but not forgotten, used to tell me that whenever he and his pals got together at the pub and the talk turned to rugby of either code, opinion was split down the middle as to who was better, Dally or Dave Brown. Both played for Easts – Dally was from my old stomping ground, Double Bay, and Dave was yet another player from Waverley College (Hello, Sheek), but they were years apart – Dally before WW1 and Dave pre WW2. In the 1933-34 Kangaroo tour Dave scored 285 points – 19 tries and 114 goals, and there are still people in England, so I’m told, who talk of his amazing play.
There are many guys aged 70 or so living in Australia who saw Clive Churchill play, and for them Clive will always be the greatest ever. And then there’s a bit of a gap till we get to three backs good enough to join the above legends: Jarden, Blanco and Campo.
Now many of us are wondering if Carter will go on to be a legend. If the ABs win the RWC, it’d be a great springboard for him.
Firestarter Bob said | November 28th 2009 @ 7:32am | Report comment
I’ve seen plenty of forwards using the bump to try and knock players off their feet at the breakdown. It was going on deluxe this morning in the Paris St Germain & Toulon game. Didn’t see Sonny Bill Williams unleash any though.
Thinking about it Untimelyzapped if you made the bump lawful SBW’s $ value would triple.
sheek said | November 28th 2009 @ 10:43am | Report comment
Yeah, you’re trying to compare the two on the basis of some obscure tackle? How does that work??
A point about Messenger, or any great player, for that matter. Their fame is because they usually played a position unlike anyone before them, or most since. Think of guys like Ella & Campese, or Lomu, M.Jones & Mead.
They were not only utterly dominant in their era, but often brought something entirely different to the position.
Some of the things attributed to Messenger back then might seem passe now, but at the time he was like a pioneer, an explorer carving out new territory for others to follow. That’s what makes players like Messenger so special.
Who Needs Melon said | November 29th 2009 @ 11:51am | Report comment
I don’t agree that the shoulder should be legal under any circumstances. I’ve seen too many concussions resulting from them.
Dublin Dave said | November 30th 2009 @ 10:49am | Report comment
Oh Dear. Not this non controversy again. I swore that I wouldn’t say any more on this. But if you insist.
Untimelyzapped you say that ” an angled shoulder bump when a runner is close to the touchline should be considered.”
Rest assured, that is actually legal under the current laws. There is no mention of a law against shoulder charging per se. There IS a law against “dangerous charging” which is quite clearly something else. Why?
Because there is another law which specifically says that two players running for a ball MAY nudge each other shoulder to shoulder.Although this refers to a different situation to the Kearney Elsom incident, it nonetheless implies as clearly as night follows day that such shoulder to shoulder contact is NOT inherently dangerous and therefore is NOT illegal.
Furthermore the right to “push” a player in possession of the ball is specifically permitted by another fundamental law on the method of play. I am convinced that is all Kearney was trying to do to Elsom in the case you mention. But even if there was shoulder to shoulder contact, it would not have been illegal.
I believe both you and WhoNeedsMElon have correctly identified the sort of front on shoulder to chest or shoulder to chin charge which results in the “running into a brick wall” type of deceleration that can cause concussion and/or broken ribs and should indeed remain illegal. There are plenty of other legal ways of stopping a ball carrier without knocking him senseless.
But then, I’ve said all this before……