Make no mistake, there is a media campaign being waged not just against shoulder charges, but against the game itself.
You need only look at the furore several years back in response to NRL players making “gang” signs. A handful of NRL players were pictured and subsequently attacked, along with the NRL itself, by a swathe of vitriolic journalists.
The players in question – Tony Williams, Mose Masoe, Masada Iosefa and more – were guilty of little more than being young and human! Their naivety resulted in an aggressive media campaign that again dirtied the image of the players and the sport.
The journalists leading that campaign refused to use reason or perspective, instead choosing to knowingly rubbish the game with “beat-up” articles. These same men and women are now doing all that they can to tear at the very fabric of the game, propagandising for a shoulder charge ban.
These journalists refuse to give legitimate argument in favour of the shoulder charge. Why don’t we see a proper argument in favour of the shoulder charge?
At best we’re offered one-liners from a token player using clichéd speak of ‘man sports’.
The really worrying part? The game seems to be bowing to the pressure.
The NRL has succumbed several times to media-manufactured outrage. Manly, for example, went on record to criticise Tony Williams finger-foolery, declaring his actions unacceptable, despite Peter Peters conceding that he “didn’t know what the sign meant”.
This is a small example, but a perfect example of the NRL taking action on behalf of media pressure. The NRL must stand up and challenge their adversaries.
What the journalists don’t tell you about shoulder charges is that the legal variety will rarely lead to concussion, just as a textbook arm tackles rarely lead to injury. The concussion risk comes primarily from high contact, as with textbook arm tackles.
Interestingly, the media do something rather unusual when it comes to high shots. They make a clear distinction between a legal textbook tackle (one below the neck) and an illegal textbook tackle. But when it comes to shoulder charges they conflate the legal kind with the illegal kind.
Opponents of the shoulder charge intentionally confuse illegal shoulder charges and legal shoulder charges. What better way to dirty the shoulder charge?
Every time a player has been concussed via an illegal shoulder charge – a challenge that makes contact with the face – the media have berated the game.
The media, as Chomsky would say, are trying their best to manufacture consent for a shoulder charge ban. Who cares if the vast majority – and I can’t stress the vast bit enough – of players and fans support the shoulder charge?
Those who oppose the shoulder charge can be put into three categories: (1) The media, (2) Brainwashed rugby union fans, (3) Doctors.
Did any of these self-deluded authorities on our sport cry foul and call for arms in the tackle to be banned, because three times in three weeks a player was left sprawled on the floor from a high tackle?
When Kasiano went high and forced FuiFui from the game with concussion, which media outlets called for an NRL-wide ban on wrapping tackles? When Tony Williams knocked out Cooper Cronk where were the journalists to conflate the tackle with a legal arm tackle and demand a ban of arm tackles?
When Brett Morris, in the same game, was concussed by David Shillington did the media care?
Respected rugby league doctors like David Givney advocate for rugby union style tackling rules but their position cannot be taken seriously.
Givney makes call for rugby wrapping rules because he’s been led to believe that rugby is safer without shoulder charges. What the Rugby establishment, statisticians and doctors don’t tell you is that the context of injuries in both codes is completely different, just as the context of tackling in the two codes is completely different.
An arm tackle in rugby is worlds apart from an arm tackle in league.
They do not take into account the different rules in rugby league. The fact that rugby league has a 10 metre line, goal-line drop-outs and kick-restarts, all of which are conductive to high impact collisions. Rugby league averages 800 tackles per game, Rugby 250, but this fact is ignored.
Can Givney honestly say, when looking at concussion rates between the NRL and Rugby, that it’s a fair comparison? Have these doctors not watched Rugby?
In Rugby, you do not have players running the ball 30-40 metres into a waiting defensive line. In rugby, you do not have teams kicking high and long on kick off, with the opposition running the ball back with all the ferocity they can muster.
In rugby you do not have a 10-metre line creating distance so players can pick up momentum before entering contact.
In rugby you do not have any of that. In rugby players are more concerned with the ruck than they are running or tackling with venom.
There are several league journalists who know the game very well. Why then do they fail to mention the contextual differences?
Go and see if you can find, in the mass of anti-shoulder charge articles, even one mention of what I’ve said. Not one journalist has had the integrity to highlight these fundamental differences.
Until rugby has goal-line drop-outs, a 10 metre rule, the strip rule and no rucks, and until they start running and tackling like they mean it, and do so 800 times a game, there will be no fair comparison.
The fact of the matter is that a legal shoulder charge is safe, relatively. The NRL should not bow to the media.
The only league journalist able to distinguish legal and illegal shoulder charges is Paul Kent. Unfortunately for league fans, Paul Kent is a rare breed, and would no doubt come under fire within his company were he to question the intellectual-dwarfism of his fellow journalists and editors.
Yes there is a problem, but every shoulder charge concussion this year has been the result of contact with the face, which is already illegal.
The sensible debate to be had here is whether punishment for illegal high shots, whether with a shoulder or arm, is enough a deterrent at present. That’s the adult discussion we should be having right now.
Instead there’s a knee-jerk response where we say the shoulder charge should be banned forever because some players, very occasionally, illegally put their shoulder into someone’s melon.
However, there are zero media outlets in opposition to lift-tackles, because tackles in which players are lifted off the ground sometimes go wrong.
Nobody says “We should ban lift tackles all together, because tip tackles and spear tackles are dangerous”.
The bottom line is that legal shoulder charges are not particularly dangerous, despite what you’ve been told.
Can anyone remember Ben Matulino, the game’s best shoulder charge exponent, knocking somebody out? No, because he doesn’t go high.
Here’s a challenge to the media: next year, count concussions via shoulder charges and arm tackles, both legal and illegal. You will soon see that concussion rates for arm tackles and shoulder charges are barely distinguishable, and in both cases the bulk of injuries will be the result of already illegal high shots.
The problem is not whether you’re hitting someone in the face with your arm or with your shoulder, the problem is you’re hitting someone in the face!
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