Does an achieved feat have any value if it has been won too easily? William Webb Ellis first ran with the rugby ball, but he had to traverse a perilous field full of lurking dangers to do it.
While Ellis was free in 1823 to hold tradition in contempt and run with the ball, the opposition were equally free to employ whatever tactic or force they wished to stop him.
Author Thomas Hughes, who attended Rugby School as a student in the 1830s, recalled “a jury of Rugby boys of that day would almost certainly have found a verdict of ‘justifiable homicide’ if a boy had been killed” attempting to run with the ball.
It sounds a tongue-in-cheek comment but it wasn’t far from the truth.
No one had yet thought to pass the ball to a team mate, meaning the bear-hugging method to capture player and ball together was of little necessity. The favoured means to bring a runner down were hacking (something akin to tripping) or charging (using your shoulder or torso to bowl or knock him off his feet).
For ball-carriers, heavy falls and tumbles were common place. There was little sympathy for their injuries.
For any rugby player running with the ball, and succeeding at it for any distance, it was an exhilarating thrill. There was sense of brave achievement and indeed survival. It was a hare or fox hunt played out in human form with the blood hounds pursuing their prey – the captured were overthrown and quickly disappeared under a massed pile of arms, legs and bodies.
It was understood then and ever since (though perhaps less in recent times) that in carrying the ball you are signalling to all your consent to, within the limits of the laws and customs of the game, being pursued and physically harmed until dispossessed of the ball.
The game of course evolved, ball-carriers thought more about where they chose to run to minimise the injury risk or avoid capture, or they transferred the ball by kicking or passing it. Later team work and combinations became a large part of the game.
The “shoulder charge” by gradual degrees faded out of the game. In 1921 charging an opponent in the lineout was banned, but it was still allowed in general play: “Charging is permissible, but it must not be violent or dangerous.”
The assessment of what was “violent or dangerous” was left in the hands of the referee, but there was a wide understanding of what was acceptable or not.
Writing in the British press in 1922, a rugby expert stated that any charge that included jumping was in the dangerous category, while a legitimate “charge should either be a shove with the shoulder in a standing position, or, if with a short run, one or both feet should be on the ground.”
“The charge should be on the upper part of the body – shoulder or chest”, and “(t)here is no need to be squeamish about it, but there are obvious limits”.
The unanswerable question was how far can a player run to deliver a charge, particularly in the case of a back racing 20 or 30m across the field to meet an opponent, often a forward, that is also running flat out.
Every player knows the violence of a charge delivered with all the accumulated impetus of a long rush. It is of course much worse when tackler and ball-carrier are both running into each other.
But there is no formula that can be the basis for a law to determine or limit the amount of force reasonably used. The tackler makes choices, the ball-carrier has options.
By the late 1990s, the IRB had in effect banned the shoulder charge by adopting Law 10.4: “A player must not charge or knock down an opponent carrying the ball without trying to grasp that player”.
It was an amendment that initially passed without much debate, if any, as the tactic rarely featured in the modern game.
The trigger for the law change is thought to have been a pre-emptive strike to prevent league’s growing predilection for shoulder charges re-entering the code, or the outcome of studies on potential injury risks and insurance costs in a litigious age, specifically in the USA where many players coming to rugby had been bred on American football tackling methods.
Even if the shoulder charge was still legal in rugby, the nature of the game compared to league affords few opportunities to utilise it, outside of the backs in open field situations.
League has in many respects de-evolved, returning to rugby’s origins where predictability and repetition afford opportunity to a player possessing a desire to charge an opponent.
It is not hard to identify situations in league where a ball-carrier is not intending to pass the ball – the player returning the kick-off or drop out, the ubiquitous “hit up” from the play-the-ball under the 10m rule.
Charging is a tempting option when these situations give ample occasion to get a head of steam up, and the reward is often the ball-carrier and his team being dispossessed of the ball.
With non-contestable play-the-balls and scrums, along with defenders penalised for ball stripping (apart from one-on-one), attempting to mine-blast the ball from a ball-carrier’s hold via body and shoulder charging is all that is left to change the possession flow of the game.
All of this is coupled with a dire mantra that sees accidents involving the head blamed on someone. All obligations fall solely upon the tackler (accidental head contact, loose carrying of the ball, not releasing the tackle quickly enough).
The defender will often be penalised and sometimes suspended, while the ball-carrier in league sometimes appears to run in a blissful daze of comfortable routine. You can understand why some one-dimensional ball-carriers make for juicy targets for a shoulder charge exponent.
The question of what is too much force for a shoulder charge can never be answered unilaterally – each situation is different. Certainly don’t make the initial contact be to the head.
Be sure to understand though that modern rugby league has created the environment to foster the shoulder charge, especially one encompassing a running start.
Be equally sure that a game designed to placate doctors and mothers won’t attract the same number of players, nor TV viewers and spectators. A game without risk is not worth playing, nor worth watching.
But league lacks the collective informed discourse and will to enter an internal, let alone public, debate where it can fully explore its position, its culture, its playing rules and tactics. There needs to be a discussion on players and fans want, with arguments to challenge, counter or balance the often hysterical claims of media, medical professions and other groups.
The easy path would be to simply give in, to change the rule book to further stifle the tackling side, and once again mollify the ball-carrier’s increasingly comfy existence.
Ultimately protection and prevention from injury lies with the ball-carriers themselves on the field.
Danny
Guest
That might be why Sonny Bill Williams is so successful in both NRL & rugby. He isn't a sitting target waiting to be hit like Groat was when Teo got him. Looking at SBW's shoulder charges on you tube the one where he hit Joel Clinton it was actually Clinton that ran to SBW!!! SBW didn't come out of the line to hit Clinton. How can a shoulder charge be banned in league when the player with the ball often drops his shoulder into the tackler?
Jaceman
Guest
The punchline is the code is very professional - the players are much bigger and faster but protection to the head has remained the same...I'm not concerned anyone will die - they will survive and get up and be hit again so in 20 years we will now be having the discussions they are now having in the US. Four Corners has already found some examples and there are lots of others around. When Paddy Ryan came to the Brumbies from the broncos he was amazed at how seriously rugby took concussions compared to the Broncos (one example only of course).
oikee
Guest
Agree, and their is not a problem with charging players who attack the head. I love rugby league for this very reason, it is hard, it is skillful and it is tough, but please dont try to mess up our players looks, they are ugly enough without hitting them high. They also have enough to worry about, going 80 minutes without a slight mistake with that play the ball. Like i said not long ago, it is like the Gymnastics, you make a tiny mistake at the paly the ball, penalty. Pressure, lots of pressure without having to worry about your head. Keep the head safe, keep it clean i say. I want our players looking nice and ugly. :) Hope you dont have a problem with ugly. Ugly is beautiful in rugby league, the uglier the better. Just kidding.
Sean Fagan
Guest
Cheers Bazzio. As I endeavoured to illustrate, rugby has since its founding been more than a mere board game played out by humans on a grassed field - it has always had a martial element, that provided the thrill from the risk, and a challenge to test yourself, and to protect yourself in doing so. For fools rush in where angels fear to tread. But if your summation is what rugby league is now, then so be it, it is some other sport getting about using the name "rugby league". Comments made by the NRL at the Inglis hearing would confirm this is indeed the case: "Our sport is not gladiatorial" and "Player Young has no duty to protect his head here" http://www.theaustralian.com.au/sport/nrl/greg-inglis-ban-mars-rabbitohs-hopes/story-fnca0von-1226435222953 Rugby hardened and taught boys and men in how to cope & survive in difficult & sometimes dangerous situations. Your post's contents & the NRL judiciary has illustrated that today's league is a version of rugby that seeks to afford a field free of troubles for even the most foolhardy & uncreative of players. Take out the risk of danger, take out the risk of punishment for poor self-made choices, & it produces a game without a personal challenge, unless you class the game as no longer a football code, but an athletic pursuit or exercise.
Bazzio
Roar Guru
There are two serious issues of contention and both are clearly wrong ~ 1. "A game without risk is not worth playing, nor worth watching". This is a red-herring furphy based upon assumption rather than fact or consensus. Risk has nothing to do with any reasons for playing, or watching a sport. Rather, it is the competitive nature of humankind that makes sport a spectacle of speed, skill, ability, and intelligence to outwit an opposition by way of those talents. "Risk" sports are well defined ~ free-climb mountaineering, sky-diving, cage-fighting are all very risky sports, and because they are, it cannot be assumed that all are, or indeed should or need be. 2. "Ultimately protection and prevention from injury lies with the ball-carriers themselves on the field". This is nothing but a nonsensical contention. All players have an implicit duty of care when effecting tackles and in general play. The Rules of Rugby League state : 15.1) A player is guilty of misconduct if he: Attacks the head of an opponent when effecting a tackle. i) Behaves in any way contrary to the true spirit of the game. (m) makes an attempted act of reckless or intentional conduct, e.g. raised elbow, swinging arm. FOUL PLAY - High tackles (contact with the head) are not allowed, and incur a penalty (a kick for goal or six PLAYS). Furthermore, the NRL Referee's Guidelines Handbook states "In the interest of player safety the following will attract penalties. a) Any high contact with the head or neck The International Rules of Rugby League state : 2.1.5 A tackler must not use any special holds or throws which are likely to cause injury. So the rules of Rugby League clearly outline that the conduct of player's should not bring about or cause any danger or injury or even the risk of danger or injury, and the onus of responsibility is clearly with the defender.
Sean Fagan
Guest
The editors opted to clip the last 3 paragraphs... In Hughes’ description of football at Rugby School (in "Tom Brown's Schooldays") most of the players were involved in the mass of humanity called the scrummage – outside of it were the older players, the ball-carrying ‘dodgers’ and their mortal enemies, the ‘chargers’. Hughes had it right when he wrote 150 years ago that the dodgers “must have more coolness than the chargers.” League players getting swatted by the modern-day chargers aren’t exhibiting much coolness of thought, and are a long way from being dodgers and looking after their own protection.
B.A Sports
Guest
You can ban the shoulder charge, but it does not entirely solve the problem because there have been several suspensions this year for a player's shoulder making contact with the head of an opponent and they haven't been making a "shoulder charge". In regard to the article, while yes some shoulder charges occur on the stock standard hit up, plenty of link players get levelled by a body check when the ball is moved quickly across the back line, and the defence finds itself either trying to come up with a big play, or don't have time to get up and lock up the ball. So League may have contributed to a more dangerous shoulder charge environment by moving from the five to 10m rule (which made the game more creative), but it certainly isn't fostered because league is "one-dimensional".
oikee
Guest
Interesting, my veiw being we cant ban the shoulder charge. This would change the whole fabric of the game. The ball carrier as well, example, Moseo when he charged into Shackleton the other day with his shoulder. ? Would he be charged, and Indris when he bumped a player sideways into the ground. Then you have the ball carriers running at speed into the defence, if the shoulder charge was banned, will the ball carrier have to run upright without being allowed to brace himself with his shoulder. A reverse shoulder charge. Will it mean the ball carrier can be charged, fined. Its a can of worms even trying to ban the shoulder charge. You would change the fabric of the game, Players will need to be thinking about how they tackle, it will become a dogs breakfast. One other point you never mentioned when you were talking about possession, rugby league is a fair game, it gives both teams equal opportunity to create try's and eaqual amount of time with the ball, if both teams dont create any other opportunities other than five plays and kick the ball. So they dont have to dislodge the ball from the carrier, and it is frowned upon to strip the ball as well. The last thing you want is the other team to get anymore than 5 tackles each set. So plenty of opportunity for having the ball. You dont see many games where both teams play at nearly 100%. The games i have seen are quite enjoyable, 5 tackles, kick, 5 tackles kick, this goes on for nearly the whole game, neither side making mistakes or giving away penalties. Because you dont see it often, you get quite cuaght up in the battle with neither team wanting to give a inch or make a mistake. Yes it would be boring if every game was like this, but as i said, it dont happen real often because of human error or discipline. The repeat set is a important part of our game, trying to force another 6 tackles. If they reduce the interchange, this could open the game up even more, fatique and other issues like the little man will come into play. Either way, league is looking good.
steve b
Roar Guru
S.F. You paint an interesting picture of the early days ,,good read ,,and yes interesting times ahead for the new commish and which way they will go ,,and where are they do they even exist !!