ARL Commission is right to ban the shoulder charge

Been on quite a few coaching clinics over home, rugby and league. Shoulder charge wasnt in any of the training manuals then, and they probably isn't now - funny that eh ! Two of the hardest hitters in either code, Joe Stanley and Michael Jones could put a guy away with a good, but legal spot tackle, and still draw the wow factor from the crowd. And Tony Tuimavave, the former axeman for the Warriors took out a lot more big guys by chopping them down around the ankles, than anyone has through the shoulder charge. Learn from that boof heads, learn to tackle !

i guess you failed the tackle section of the coaching manual e Harfish?????

Lay it on the line Chris, how many king hit shoulder charges have you put on in your career, how many have come off, and how many have you worn, where, when, who and what team, oh and after the hit, what was the score ?

Head high tackles are already outlawed. If the tackler's intention is to take the ball carrier to the ground and not just take them out that is within the spirit of the game and less likely to cause litigation. The rest of your comment is bordering on hysterical.

Logical conclusion the all or nothing argument you present is considered one of the hall marks of logical failure.

do you have any actual research to back you up?

A collision between a 110kg person running at full pace and another either similar size or smaller will have impact,no question.On the head ,very small chance. The very reason players go to the gym,put on muscle is to absorb wait for it :collisions. Tell me when a player goes to a gym, to add muscle to his head to absorb collisions(sic). The chances of contact with the head via running into a player, one of if not the the most vulnerable parts of the human body are extremely rare Damage enough can be done by accidental kneeing,sheesh do we need any more opportunities . The evidence just on this year alone ,with the impact of shoulder charges shows miscalculations,misstiming resulting in concussion to players. Meaning no matter how hard players may try to avoid head contact,via a shoulder charge on so many occasions it fails. The head is sacrosanct,it must be protected as much as possible. The NZRL has banned the shoulder charges for all comps.Our "concerned" players were given printed matter for making comments about the possoible banning.One club and a couple of players responded.Just plain apathy. Of course there is a safe code for kids,but the mothers(with potential young players) in a lot of instances, look at the big picture,what they see on the box or the field can and at times does influence, their decsions as to whether the child will play.. The medical profession in the main abhors boxing.And the clowns who state a good punch to the head never hurt anyone,probably had one too many punches to the noggin.

In reply to Chris's call for input from RU fans ... the injuries that occur in a RU scrum/ruck are more compressive than concussive. That is to say, the result of compression applied with great force (estimates put that force at up to 4 tonnes in a decently contested scrum). Decent training and physical conditioning can greatly lower the incidence of serious injury (not sure what doctors think about a RU scrum, though) but not totally eradicate it. A shoulder charge is concussive; that is, the result of great force delivered through impact and hence at speed. The difference between the two type of injuries is control. Compressive force can be better controlled and players able to pull out (ie Ben Darwin's neck injury in the 2003 RWC. His life was saved because the All Black prop pushing against him pulled out of the scrummaging and in fact protected him in the melee of play as the scrum broke up because he heard the dreaded call ``neck, neck, neck''). In a shoulder charge of the Dean Young-Greg Inglis variety, you have very little time hence much less control. It's worth noting that all the doctors were unanimous in their call to have it banned. My understanding of law is that once a workplace practice has been universally condemned by doctors then the employer faces greater legal liability ie providing an unsafe workplace environment.

There is a difference between an accidental knockout and an intentional knockout, you're right. But you're sat here painting yourself as some empathy-driven individual who cares deeply about player welfare. You now turn around and explain that actually you don't care about player welfare, player welfare doesn't matter you say, what matters is intention. You're happy to see major damage, carnage and brain damage as a result of the 10 metre line, kick returns, gang-tackles and tackling in general. So don't sit here and hide behind player welfare when you don't give a damn about you. You couldn't give a damn about the safety of players, you've proved that much with your response.

Okay, then we scrap the 10 metre rule and make it illegal for more than 2 players to tackle a single player. We reduce the interchange while we're at it and we change the fundamental nature of kick returns. If we're serious about player safety and reducing concussions, you'd have more luck with those measures. I don't think anyone but the criminally deluded actually believes removing the shoulder charge will play a part in changing the rate and severity of concussion(because it will not). So this is as I say, not an attempt to head off future litigation, but rather a move to appease journo-scum hysteria. If it was about litigation and was about player welfare, why then are the rule changes I'm now proposing being criminally ignored? The 10 metre line is the biggest cause of concussions that Rugby League has ever known! It's so many more times worse than the shoulder charge. What am I missing?

>rugby league should certainly not reject the verdict of the medical community. Lets ask the medical community if they believe it is in the best interest of a 110kg person to be running full throttle into another human being of the same (and often bigger) size?? Or whether the medical community believe boxing or MMA is a suitable sport to maintain the safety interests of someone. Rugby League is a collisiion sport - we accept the conditions when we sign play - as adults we should be allowed to make that choice!!! (thats why they have a safe play code for kids)

Well then I refer you to the reports on head injuries due to high collision incidents on the football field (here and in the US). The governing body has no choice but to plan for the future and make rule changes that will head off future litigation. Fans dont like it. Same thing has happened in the AFL.

This is final, lets get that straight,. No amount of bring back the biff or shoulder charge will change anything. The minute that someone gets hurt, and the law looks at the recommendations of a report signed by the top doctor in sport, your asking for trouble. The parents would be in their element to sue the backside off our game. Accidental knockout you cant argue, preventable knockout from purposeful intentions is a NO NO. As Fatty would say, goonnnne. It is already banned in NZ for a reason.

And again your not understanding, there is a difference between accidental knockout and a purposeful shoulder charge knockout. What rugby league has to erase and keep the kids in our game is getting rid of a action that can cause major damage, inflick major carnage and cause major brain damage resulting to death. Does that scare you yet. How bout i sue ya cobbles off for doing this to my kid. You had enough. ? No. How bout i action a class action and make it a major headline worldwide. ? No you want more. How about your next TV deal falls away, you end up with the candles no cake. ? hey./ I am only getting warmed up.

But mate, if that's your argument then be prepared to take it through to its logical conclusion. If you're serious about this, the logical conclusion is that you dead tackling in its entirety. If you're serious about preventing concussion and the inevitably mental problems that result, you should call for tackling to be removed from the game. If you aren't willing to do that, then you evidently aren't that serious about mental disease. I think we misunderstand each other, as it goes. I'm not actually saying forget health, let them go out and destroy each other. I'm disputing the very notion that shoulder charges are a huge risk. I don't believe they are and I have seen no evidence demonstrating to me the dangers of legal shoulder charges. All I see, so far, are cooked figures.

The point is, if you bothered to read my post, that the figures they're using are wildly inaccurate. The shoulder charge does not make up a mere 0.05% of tackles. I thought I made that much clear. If you believe that there is but 0.3 shoulder charges per Rugby League game then you obviously haven't watched or played Rugby League, at all. Shoulder charges are far more frequent than this report claims. The conclusions of the report are therefore void. There are tens of shoulder charges a game, not 0.3 as this suggest puts the figure at.

I actually agree 100% with ReB.It is such a miiniscule part of the game,banning it is like taking 5c off your electiricty bill.No one will notice. I have never come home from a game,saying it was a great game because of a shoulder charge.The day I do that,get rid of tackling.

"According to the study, ” shoulder charges made up 0.05% of the 142,355 tackles made”. This statistic actually defeats your argument. If the shoulder charge is banned and it makes up such a tiny part of the game what is the problem.

Yes, and as i pointed out yesterday. You cant put our best players out for half a year. Supporters will be leaving in droves if Sonny Bill is sitting on the sidelines for a whole year, hold on, he only has a year in the game. And Inglis, Burgess, who is paying these players to sit around doing nothing . ? Outlaw the problem and keep the players in the game. Lets make try scoring the highlight. That is what it is all about.

Yes, all well and good until it is your son being fed through a straw for the rest of his life and you need 2 to 3 nurses to wash feed and change him every day. Bit like smoking merry J, never seems a problem, you cant see the problem. Go have a look in the mental wards where families and doctors, nurses have to pick up the pieces, and pay for medication for the rest of their lives, not one or two days, forever. Chris, you could argue till your blue under water mate. I have seen the first hand effects, i lived through a brother in law weed smoker who went the whole 10 yards, Hylcinations, paranoia, denial and tearing a whole family apart. You will never win the 'it is all about me and what i like' arguement. Someone has got to pick up the pieces, it is not you, you refuse to even look back. Maybe a visit to a hospital mental ward would be your first step.