Judiciary turns cold shoulder to tough new era

A boxer who is knocked out gets a 28 day ban from doing anything ,brain injuries can happen with one knock to the brain ,,however we see week in and week out footy players get away with seamingly little or no effects ..But what long term effect does this have with repeated long term knocks to the head ,,a boxer gets more than most and yet the majority get away with no long term effects but how many is two many..How long before we see a player sue the NRL because of duty of care .You have every club doctor wanting the tackle banned ..Their are alot of hero's on this site who i suggest have never been on the end of a head high shoulder charge ,who rant about the spectacle of the hit and how great it looks ,well how great will it look if someone ends up a vegetable ..The timing is so important and their are just to many variables that can cause this tackle to go wrong so why are we still allowing this no need tacke to continue ....

All good points Mushi and Jimbo, I do concede that a study specifically on the impact of shoulder charges per se over the last 20 years is a little unrealistic...just finished reading some research by Professor Mark Stevenson and his pioneering work into chronic traumatic encephalopathy using rugby union in Australia as a case study. What I found most damning was that according to their reports, 48 per cent of players who sustained a concussion returned to play in the same game, and 34 per cent did not leave the field at all. This is despite a recommendation from the International Rugby Union Board, supported by the Australian Rugby Union, that players who suffer a concussion take a three-week break from training and play. So it's not just the issues of the concussion as such, but the fact that the protocols outlined by the governing bodies are at times ignored. The failure of players to follow advice presented a serious barrier to identifying and better managing mild brain injuries. Apparently the third and most crucial aspect of the study – the evaluation of cognitive skills post concussion – is still to be completed. I will follow this closely as a matter of objectivity to counter my initial knee-jerkiness, that I hypocritically accused Badjack of. There are recommendations by The Monash Institute for Brain Development and Repair and the Australian Centre for Research into Injury in Sport and its Prevention which state: "High profile cases of concussion-related sports injuries have highlighted the potential consequences of unseen damage and resulted in improved management practices in professional contact sports. The potential for legal action by players in both the US and Australia related to the management of head injuries is a major driver behind improved injury management and heightened awareness of the potential dangers that are expected to flow through from professional to community sport". One recent high profile case in the NRL that they mention was: Shaun Valentine (North Queensland Cowboys) was cut from his team in the National Rugby League after the 2002 season, aged 26, on medical grounds after seven severe concussions during a 36-game career. He continues to suffer vomiting, nausea, dizziness and confusion and in 2011 he became the first Australian to commit to donating his brain to the Sports Legacy Institute based at Boston University for study as part of its ongoing research into sports-related concussion. Look guys, all I'm saying is that before we completely eliminate one of the more spectacular defensive manoeuvres in the game(shoulder charges) that makes it so exciting to watch, we need to realise that statistically people such as Shaun Valentine are few and far between, when you consider how many shoulder charges are executed every season. I agree that head contact should be severely punished and the penalty should be reflective of the extent of the injury to the ball carrier. Also protocols need to be implemented where instances such as what happened to Robbie Farah in the 3rd Origin this year never happen.

Plenty of businessmen in Queensland love rugby league. An improved Queensland Cup would give them an opportunity to promote their product through rugby league. Only a few of them can do it at the moment because there's only one team in Brisbane. PNG is getting a lot of money from its natural resources. The government over there is behind their bid. Central Coast Bears would probably draw larger crowds than most Sydney clubs.

"If you pull out of the NRL Thurston will be playing for Penrith in about 30 mins" Remember what happened when Super League broke out? The best talent was snapped up by the Broncos. Take the Broncos out of the NRL and you'll see a lot of quality players leave the NRL. There are plenty of businessmen in Queensland who would throw money behind the Cowboys, Titans and Broncos if they joined a professional Queensland Cup competition that included the Central Coast Bears, West Coast Pirates, PNG bid and Wellington Orcas. The Cowboys could have played Ray Thompson, but they want his shoulder to heal before they risk putting him back on the paddock. His last comeback from injury led to him reinjuring his shoulder.

It takes quite a bit of effort for the stomach to break down the acid in oranges. Thus, not a good idea at halftime.

Then they need to review previous rulings directly before making a new one. Its beyond a joke the inconsistency....and they need to explain to the public the reason why for each ruling, in a statement because there is too much confusion. It should be done already, each year there is this problem

thats a 3 weeker for contact with the head

what drugs are you on ?, im a Queenslander and i think it about ten years since the bias stopped and what you say about pulling out of the nrl in protest with what money would we use to fund this new comp ? Png couldnt attract any top rugby players to the team, who"d live in port morsbey really !, and the Wellington team as much as id like it to happen they cant even support the union team they have atm , central coast bears are gone and dusted the got booted because no one supported them, they had inferior infrastructure, the Wa reds that's the only credible part of your argument and how the hell did we get so of subject LOL

yes lol

no not the same impacted, but the same penalty should apply if a miss timed shoulder charge or swinging arm makes contact with the head. i have played Rugby League and Aussie rules and ill take a shoulder charge over getting my head riped of from a swinging arm any day

Amen

I understand and respect your position Steve...I have read your thoughts on this issue in other articles and know that you suffered injury as a result of a shoulder charge gone wrong in your days of playing our great game. You have pretty much agreed with me anyway mate. Don't remove the shoulder charge from the game, just punish the offenders who get it wrong. I do maintain that the severity of the punishment metered out needs to reflect the severity of injury to the victim/ball carrier. This is just my opinion however.

I don't necessarily agree that every player attempting a shoulder charge is trying to injure the other party. Sure, there are some mongrels out there, but in most instances I think the motivation is to intimidate the ball runner, dislodge the ball to force a turnover and in the same process inspire their team mates and create a shift in momentum. When it goes horribly wrong, such as the Ben Te'o hit on Matt Groat in the Broncos v Tigers game earlier in the year for example, then I think the book should be thrown at the offender. The severity of injury to the "victim" should be factored into the sentencing of the offender in my humble opinion. Groat essentially missed 2 weeks of football due to the severity of the concussion. Ben Te'o should have gotten 6-8 weeks for that shot if the judiciary were serious about making an example of careless/reckless high shots. 2 weeks was an absolute farce and basically didn't reflect the severity of injury to Groat. What I don't understand, is why is there all this froth and bubble about shoulder charging in the last 12 months. The motivation for this is purely political. Shoulder charges have been an integral part of rugby league since it's inception and for every competition week of the season, of every year, for as long as I can remember there has been at least 4-5 big shots put on in all the weekly games(sometimes more). Even in this day and age, the big shot is glorified/celebrated on rugby league television shows such as NRL on Fox. The game has been sanitised and softened up enough in my opinion. Whether or not the wowsers want to agree with it or not, there is a large chunk of the rugby league fan base that enjoy the explosive excitement of a big shot being put on the ball carrier. As the old saying goes, if you want to make an omelette you have to break a few eggs. Petition the players and I think you will find that most players don't want it out of the game. It should be up to them...they are on the front line. Petition the fans and I think the overwhelming majority want the shoulder charge to remain. The punishment for offenders of ill-timed shots needs to reflect the severity of injury to the ball carrier.

Sorry, I should have added that I agree a year out of the game is an excessive punishment, but certainly, I think the NRL was entirely correct to refer such cases straight to the judiciary.

There hasn't really been much research on head injuries in the NRL, but research from America in the NFL has shown that even a lot of sub - concussive hits over a career can result in chronic traumatic encephalopathy - basically a degenerative condition of the brain resulting in symptoms resembling Alzheimer's, and depression. Several ex - NFL players have killed themselves, and upon examination, have been found to have been suffering from CTE. Although JT got straight up, that isn't really an indication that he has not suffered a concussion. Dean Young, you will recall, apparently told a trainer to 'tell Browny (Nathan Brown) to put me back on', following the Greg Inglis hit. People who are concussed are in no state to assess whether they are OK to continue playing. I also fail to see how this amounts to 'soft c*ckery and political correctness'. Contact with the head has always been against the rules of the game. I would add that as there is quite a wide evidence base from the US about the impact of repeated impacts to the head, the NRL would be setting itself up for an open and shut negligence lawsuit if it did nothing. The NFL is already facing a lawsuit from ex - players alleging that it hid evidence of the impact of repeated concussion. I like to see some big hits as much as the next man, but by the same token, I don't want to support a game which knowingly puts its players in a position where they are likely to suffer debilitating illness at the end of their careers. I would also rather the game wasn't sued out of existence due to its failure to take appropriate measures to reduce the risk of head injury as much as possible.

I think the issue is there is no consistency, and the idiots are running the asylum. The only problem I have with Pomeroy is that it was late, I couldnt see any head contact though JTs head did "whiplash" on impact. All season there have been inconsistent decisions. Kasiano kocks a blokes head off and gets nothing (I never said that commonsense wasnt applied though, just ts not consistent). Minichello gets off after attacking the head of an opponent. Players, coaches and fans dont know whats going on. Thats what sh*ts me about the Kasiano tackle is that they applied commonsense rather than apply the law, but they very rarely do that.

oikee, you are starting to mellow fellow. You made no mention of contact being late - NOT only after he had passed the ball but the game was almost over with only 4 minutes to go, That alone was worth a week. Really it was up there with being a "Dog Act". So 'Late' + knocked JT "Out" is definitely 2 weeks. In light of the "your commsh' categorically insisting that shoulder/high tackles are now "outlawed' the trio's ruling on the panel seems to go against the stated objective. A circular stating the new tackle criteria was forwarded to all clubs and dare I say it the Judiciary. Perhaps it's time some of the ex-player clowns meting out rulings on time/games to be punished, ought themselves come under consideration by the Commiah. Did the Judiciary think that having 2 ex Q'lders and a ex Manly player would be the fairest and most able to adjudicate or were they drawn out of a hat, as seems to be the case.

This is comedy gold. If you pull out of the NRL Thurston will be playing for Penrith in about 30 mins. Seriously if Thurston had gotten injured against against Cronulla it would have been comedy gold ! They should have played a young kid..... It was the perfect opportunity to try a plan B should Thurston get injured during the semi's they would have had a player who has played a top 8 team needing to win but know the wife beating cowboys decided they knew better than common sense.

Super League anyone. :) What they need to be careful about is what ScottWoodward brought up on a previous blog. Resting players if you know your in the finals. If a player took out Thurston and he missed the finals, what happens, a suspension and we never know if he did it on purpose.

Apparently you have to commit murder to be sent off in an NRL match these days. Trouble is the referees are never supported by the ARL and get an absolute schlacking if they award more penalties to one side than another during a game let alone if they send some one off. So the most they ever do is place someone on report and avoid the issue. Imagine the bitchin' and moaning from the coaches if a few players got sent off in the first half of a match. It would be priceless.