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The Roar

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NRL: The shoulder still has charge

Roar Pro
25th March, 2013
2

It is the view of many rugby league fans that supporting the reintroduction of the shoulder charge makes you a Neanderthal or a redneck.

After all, studies have shown there is 70 times more risk of a player being injured by a shoulder charge than any other type of tackle (excluding spear tackles, crusher tackles, chicken wings, clothes lines and any tackle leading with the forearm or elbow).

I can assure you however, that I stand relatively upright and my neck is pasty-white.

This is not because I wear a cravat, or because of some moisturising sunblock regime Shane Watson recommended in Men’s Health magazine.

It’s because I whittle away my weekends, which could be spent enjoying the great outdoors, plonked on a couch, swearing at a television screen, depriving my rather corpulent neck of any and all exposure to sunlight.

While this has done little for my posture, I still wouldn’t say it puts me in the Neanderthal category. I’d lean more towards Homo Habilis. (Yes, that was an evolutionary biology joke. Further proof I’m not a redneck.)

I realise I only have myself to blame for neglecting my body’s vitamin D requirements and my slightly hunched stance, but when it comes to the swearing, I’m passing the buck.

The insistence of the NRL to introduce more grey areas into rugby league has led to my three year old son learning several new words over the past few weeks.

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I was, and still am, a detractor of the shoulder charge being banned. Initially, it was because of the unintended consequences these rule changes tend to have. In this case, I was concerned without the shoulder, it would be more difficult for teams to swing momentum back in their favour.

There is some early evidence to suggest this might be the case, with 13 instances so far of teams not scoring a point in a half of football.

This could be attributed to a number of factors though, so I’m not going to be pulling out my ‘I told you so’ dance just yet.

Many of my fellow detractors were more concerned with questions such as ‘What constitutes a shoulder charge?’ and ‘How will it be policed?’.

I was less concerned with these matters. If rugby union can successfully employ a black and white approach to shoulders, surely the NRL could simply emulate that approach, avoid creating another grey area in the game, and my son’s exposure to my rainbow of expletives will be postponed at least until the Ashes.

Could I have been more wrong?

Three rounds in and there have been more bell ringers than at the Vatican.

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I’m told you can’t lead with your right shoulder, for instance, with your right elbow tucked into your ribs, unless your left arm is attempting to wrap the player up. The interpretation of this seems to be as long as your left arm is flailing about somewhere near the bloke you’re belting, then you can shoulder to your heart’s content, provided you don’t make contact with the head.

You can however, make contact with the head via a studs-first-fly-kick, so long as you’re Billy Slater.

To put it simply, they’ve introduced another grey are into the game when there was already far too many for my liking.

Take the stripping rule for instance. Each time the ball spills out of a ruck, the referee has to shake a magic 8-ball to decide whether the ball was stripped or it was a loose carry. Even after several super slo-mo replays, it can be nigh on impossible to tell whether he got the call right.

The obstruction rule as it stands allows for the ball carrier to run behind a teammate, provided the intention of the decoy blah blah depth of pass blah blah outside shoulder blah blah purple monkey dishwasher.

It used to be if you ran behind your own player while in possession, it would be considered shepherding and a bunch of Kiwis would invite themselves over to your place for a crate after the match.

It was cut and dry. Black and white. David and Margaret.

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The world’s most widely embraced sports leave little to interpretation. Sure, the likes of soccer, tennis and golf aren’t immune to controversy – soccer has even had its share of studs-first-fly-kicks to the face – but the rules are clear cut and a dubious ruling doesn’t need to be analysed and debated by a panel of former coaches and referees before it is deemed a poor one.

The common theme with these sports is that the rules have hardly changed since their inception.

So as to not leave any grey areas in what I am trying to say here, I have put together the ‘Rules for changing your rules’. This is a guideline for any sporting code looking at altering the laws of their game:

Rule 1. Don’t.

Rule 2. If for some unforeseen circumstance Rule 1 cannot be adhered to, such as a new board member wanting to make his/her mark, or the media are being really, really mean about one of your laws, ensure the new law simplifies the game rather than complicates it.

Rule 3. There should be no room for interpretation in your new rule, unless your sport is one of those stupid ones that has judges who determine the result (such as gymnastics, diving, The Block).

Rule 4. Stand by your rule. Don’t water it down, add clauses or exceptions and most of all, punish anyone who fails to adhere to your rule with all of your judiciary might.

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While I agree with the overwhelming majority of commentators who have applauded the refs on their start to the season, many of the rules they are charged with enforcing are too vague and open to interpretation.

They’re hanging these poor refs out to dry, leaving them with no choice but to endure the foul mouthed tirades handed out by the likes of my three year old son.

The ARLC need to stop worrying about my feelings and do what needs to be done – either reverse the decision to ban the shoulder charge and punish contact with the head more severely, or remove the shoulder charge completely from the game i.e. you must be attempting a tackle with your leading arm, not just your trailing arm.

It’s not rocket science. But it might be brain surgery.

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