The lost art of the foot trip

The year is 1974. I remember it well. I was ten years old and about to play my first game of rugby.

Up until then my sporting experience had been limited by my protective mother, to softball and soccer. I was what would kindly be termed puny.

I was blessed with great speed, an uncanny ability to catch, and a healthy sense of self preservation. However, no one had seen fit to bless me with any idea of the rules of the game of rugby.

I think in New Zealand in 1974 all ten year old boys were expected to know about rugby. But the aforementioned protective mother had seen fit to shield me from all such rough pastimes and I had never even seen a proper rugby game.

Quite how I had come to be in this game escapes me now, but my mother was certainly nowhere to be seen.

So the contest began. In the early stages I managed to avoid all contact, evading the ball and opponents with a flair bordering on the miraculous.

Unfortunately, the opposition had a Jonah Lomu-like figure who blasted his way through our team with impunity and had scored about six tries within the first ten minutes. But a fateful moment arrived (my evasion skills having led me to loiter unnoticed behind the action) when the behemoth burst from the pack and headed straight towards me.

Another try was clearly in the offing, until in a moment of inspiration, I took him down with a spectacular flying leg trip!

As I rose from the ground triumphant, expecting the adulation of my teammates, an angry man blowing a whistle, screamed at me “if you do that again I’ll send you off!”

So I learned that the leg trip is not an approved method of bringing down an opponent, even one who tipped the scales at about three times my weight.

I don’t remember anything of the rest of the game, which implies I was either so humiliated I’ve blocked it out, or I attempted an approved tackle and was concussed.

This memory was brought back to me this week as World Rugby in its wisdom handed down edicts with harsher penalties for tacklers making contact with the head of ball carriers.

At the same time it was announced that 72 per cent of serious injuries in tackles were incurred by the tackler and only 28 per cent by the ball carrier. Therefore, World Rugby addressed the 28 per cent of injuries but completely ignored the 72 per cent.

This is rather like discovering that 90 per cent+ of head injuries in road accidents happen in motor vehicles, while less than 5 per cent of head injuries are incurred by cyclists, and therefore making it compulsory for cyclists to wear helmets, but not car drivers. Sorry – bad hypothetical example, this actually happened in Australia and New Zealand.

Perhaps it’s more akin to discovering that most head injuries are incurred by people in the front seat of cars and making a rule that all back seat passengers have to wear helmets.

But the crux of the matter is that more people are injured while tackling, because tackling is the most inherently dangerous activity that happens on a rugby field.

The rules state that the arms must be used while tackling. The big problem with this is that the arms are attached to the shoulders and the shoulders support the head. Therefore whenever a tackle is made, the tackler must lead with the head.

It is impossible to make a tackle involving the arms without the tackler’s head being the closest thing to the collision.

If the tackle goes slightly wrong, or if the ball carrier is uncooperative and moves unexpectedly, the tackler’s head can be smashed by an unpadded hip bone, a knee, or an elbow.

So why is it that rugby legislates that the only way to tackle is the most dangerous way? I recognised at ten years old that tripping was the safest way to tackle, but tripping is seen as an act of evil only slightly behind biting and gouging.

This seems to go back to sporting ideals where kicking someone is a cowardly way to fight. Queensberry rules say you fight like a man with your hands, not your feet.

Rugby has always been a game about bravery. When William Webb-Ellis (or whoever it was) picked up the ball and ran with it, it was a very brave act, likely to end in a pummelling.

Stopping someone running with the ball had to be an equally brave act, hence the requirement to tackle in a brave way, leading with the vulnerable head, not the feet.

Today running with the ball is not as dangerous and does not require the same bravery that William Webb-Ellis showed, but tackling is unchanged and as players are bigger today, the bravery required has actually increased.

Modern recognition that tackling while bravely leading with the head leads to repeated concussion and possibly to drooling dementia, World Rugby has made rulings on only 28 per cent of potential injuries and continues to ignore a tackling technique which could address some of the 72 per cent of tackler injuries.

The safest way to bring a runner to earth is by tripping him. It will cause no more damage to the ball carrier than a legal ankle tap, so where is the evil in it?

Tripping could possibly lead to more leg injuries, but these tend to have fewer long term consequences than head injuries.

If World Rugby is serious about reducing head injuries, and addressing the 72 per cent, it should be looking seriously at legalising tripping.

Other than the general sense that tripping is wrong, why can’t the trip be a valid way of stopping a runner? It is relatively safe, it can be avoided by jumping, and it has been employed by the greatest player to play the game – Richie McCaw. What better endorsement could there be?

Rucking isn’t coming back any time soon, so the feet need to be employed more on the rugby field in ways other than kicking the ball. Let’s hear it for the humble foot trip.