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It’s been over two weeks since Newcastle Knight Alex McKinnon’s neck was fractured in two places due to a dangerous lifting tackle in the NRL game against the Storm in Melbourne.
Jordan McLean copped seven weeks for the tackle, which has fired up emotions among the players and fans. But the inertia shown by the NRL towards making the code safer is staggering.
While the administrators are making commendable moves to clamp down on the treatment of concussion sufferers and, to a far lesser extent, shoulder charges, nothing has been done to stop the lifting of attacking players. Yet the lift is far more likely to cause serious injury.
Does a player have to die for league and rugby to make lifting totally illegal? That would seem to be the only conclusion.
This week, St George’s Jack de Belin was suspended for a dangerous throw on Rabbitoh Sam Burgess. A week? A pathetic token gesture, especially in the light of McKinnon’s fractured C4 and C5 vertebrae that led him to being put in an induced coma, and eventually flown back to Sydney to start his long rehab.
There’s still a large question mark hanging over McKinnon’s future. But he obviously has plans, announcing his engagement to Teigan Power last Sunday night. That’s as encouraging as it is positive, and all sports-lovers wish the engaged couple all the best. But there mustn’t be another McKinnon, and the only way to insure that is to ban lifting altogether.
Make it an automatic and immediate send-off, a two-month suspension, and a $10,000 fine, and lifting would disappear overnight.
There’s absolutely no need to lift as in every case there are two or three defenders standing who have control of the attacking player until the referee calls held.
Compare lifting and shoulder charges – chalk and charge. Like de Belin’s week for a dangerous throw, which is lifting, and Tiger Braith Anasta’s week for a grade two shoulder charge on Manly’s David Williams, the first time Anasta has faced the judiciary in a 15-year career.
Had he pleaded not guilty and lost, Anasta would have only copped a fortnight. Yet a shoulder charge is angelic compared to lifting.
I didn’t watch every game of league and rugby over the weekend, but in the games I saw there were at least a dozen obvious dangerous throws where in most cases the referees didn’t even award a penalty.
The worst in rugby was Rebel Sean McMahon’s lift against the Highlanders that deserved an immediate send off, but was only a penalty from Kiwi referee Chris Pollock, one of the best going around.
But rugby referees won’t send off unless the laws say so, and that’s the point. There’s never going to be enough action against lifters until SANZAR make lifting illegal, because the toothless IRB won’t do anything.
Not one senior decision-maker of either code has made a positive statement towards banning lifting.
Pray something even more serious than Alex McKinnon’s fate doesn’t happen before they get off their respective butts.