The 2020 NRL season is not far away and soon we’ll be watching players reel back in a tackle then hold their face after wearing a forearm to the head.
It may be the first contact or the second or third tackling effort, it doesn’t matter, the ball carrier is just as likely to get a broken nose.
“Just a part of the game,” says the commentator. “There was no intention to strike the head,” you’ll hear repeatedly. “Very unfortunate, but when you hold the ball that high, there is always the chance of the tackler’s arm bouncing up into your head,” they’ll say, partly blaming the ball carrier for being smacked in the mouth by the tackler.
Or how about “But he was falling a little, so the tackler surely can’t be penalised; we’ll go to an ad break while the doctor is on the field,” as the tackled player surveys his face for an eye socket injury.
In the USA the degenerative brain disease Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) has been linked to repeated instances of concussion. The University of Sydney Brain and Medical Centre announced that signs of CTE had been found in the donated brains of two former NRL players who had played over 150 NRL games (including Bulldog legend Steve Folkes).
These brains were significantly different from the other 1000 brains that the investigating doctor, Associate Professor Michael Buckland had studied.
A related article from news.com from June 27, 2019 titled ‘Groundbreaking discovery in NRL brain disease crisis’ stated that “The only known risk factor for CTE is repeated concussions and blows that don’t cause signs or symptoms”. Every head knock, even the minor ones that are common in any NRL game, potentially contribute to a CTE outcome.
With that in mind, shouldn’t the NRL and Todd Greenberg be doing everything possible to limit the risk of head contact for any reason?
(AAP Image/Peter Rae)
To its credit, the NRL introduced head injury guidelines as far back as 2014 and has since developed the current Head Injury Assessment (HIA) Protocol. But the HIA is a tool for the assessment of a player after the head knock has been sustained.
Wouldn’t it be far better to look at the reasons for the head injury in the first place, and address that?
You don’t have to look very far to realise that a fair percentage of head knocks arise from a tackle where the defender’s forearm comes in contact with the ball carrier’s head. Why does this happen as often as it does?
If you want to see how league can be played, it’s worthwhile watching boys’ high school matches as well as the NRLW. Here you will notice that the frequency of a forearm striking a head is significantly lower.
I believe that this is because the players have not yet been exposed to coaching that includes the technique of using the swinging arm as the normal way to tackle.
The swinging arm has become the norm because of its effectiveness. It is a very effective enforcement tool and an efficient mechanism for knocking the ball from the arm of the ball carrier. I call it an enforcement tool because it is clearly not used to affect a tackle, but rather it’s used to injure and physically intimidate an opponent.
A hard-swung arm connected to a very strong 100 kg male is a very potent firearm.
It is not a natural action to swing your forearm when trying to stop an attacker’s progress, the natural action is to grab, hold and wrestle to the ground.
The obvious solution is to ban the swinging arm. I’ve watched and enjoyed league for many years, but I’m not a tragic, and I think that such a ban is quite acceptable. I can imagine that the old brigade who lovelLeague partly because it’s so hard would be vehemently against the proposal.
They would argue that the game has been softened enough and the rules changed too often. But what is the priority, the retention of the macho NRL image or the long-term health of the players?
Would it be too hard to stop defenders swinging their arm? I don’t think so – if the rule change was communicated and introduced during the preseason, I think players could adapt. Naturally, there would be confusion and interpretation issues, but surely that is a price worth paying.
A swinging arm could be regarded the same as an intentional hand on the ball, which could incur a ‘six more’ call, and not disrupt the flow of play.
Repeated offences could see the defending team marched ten metres, then finally penalised. Whether or not such an application is workable I am willing for others to discuss. No doubt there will be objections to the swinging arm ban, let alone how you might apply such a rule.
The NRL has the responsibility to provide the safest possible workplace, a very difficult task in such a heavy contact sport. Good steps have been taken with the HIA but surely the NRL must be proactive to reduce the instances of HIAs being required and ban the swinging arm outright.
mushi
Roar Guru
Um this is ridiculous. You say it isn't natural but its fundamental to swing your arms forward for a tackle. To simultaneously ban the shoulder charge and the swinging arm would require players to run around like rigid extras in a zombie film.
RowiE
Roar Rookie
Thanks Greg, I'm not sure how, but I may have misunderstood your comment, my apologies. I think any way we can stop arms coming in contact with heads, I would support. No matter what is done, I think there would be a great deal of discretion required by refs. This in turn leads to inconsistencies and we have plenty of that already. I certainly don't think the issue has an easy fix, I wrote the article to highlight what I think is a situation that needs to be resolved proactively, ie stop the contact before you need a HIA. Thanks for your input, cheers RowiE
Greg
Roar Pro
It prevents the forearm contacting the head because contact around the shoulder/upper arm area (the area where contact causes the arm to bounce up) is deemed high
The Barry
Roar Guru
It’s an interesting article and good to read something that doesn’t involve anthems or stand downs As I tend to do over the off season I watched games and highlights from the 80s and 90s (golden era). One thing I noticed was that there were a lot of tackles that were immediate send offs that I thought would just be on report in this era. Even just lazy coat hanger style tackles where a defender was stepped and threw an arm out were send offs This is a time where the game was more violent, acts outside the rules were tolerated more and we knew far less about brain injury That got me thinking - and this part is completely anecdotal - but I reckon suspensions back in the day for high tackles were longer. I don’t know if there are available records but it would make an interesting comparison. I seem to recall 4 or 6 week suspensions way back when but these days a player would be unlucky to get more than two The NRL can do far more. A couple of years ago they removed a lot of the grey area and said it didn’t matter if a player was falling in a tackle or had stepped or it came off the ball or whatever the onus was on the defender to avoid head contact. That stance has definitely softened I don’t think it’s practical to ban swinging arm tackles. When they’re executed properly and with no head contact we don’t even notice them. It’s only when they make head contact they become what we call swinging arms...but certainly kore needs to be done to create a bigger disincentive to making head contact
RowiE
Roar Rookie
Thanks Nat, I certainly should have said 'fewer' instead of no swinging arms - my mistake. And I agree about social play, that can be a nightmare. I would disagree that the ball carrier gets any better opportunity to offload, all I'm saying is, stop the deliberate swinging arm. There is no other change, so the defender grabs and holds just as they do now, so the ball is wrapped up with the tackle exactly as it is now. Perhaps our understanding of what constitutes a swinging arm may differ and I'm happy to agree to disagree on the subject. Thanks for your comments, I value them, and I hope we have a League season with no head injuries. Cheers
Nat
Roar Guru
I have to disagree on the position that we don't see head-high tackles in juniors or women's game. Of course we do and I might suggest more if we are talking social comps (no - very little payment to play). Maybe I used "incidental" in the wrong context, I say most of high contact is accidental and/or reckless. I get what you're saying and you could make a rule of 'nothing above the nipples' as not to encourage anything near the head but a consideration has to be made for the defender. Much like a legs tackle, the ball carrier is gifted an opportunity by-way of this rule, to offload or get a fast PTB. I'm not trying to down play player safety or CTE but nor are all instances caused by swinging arms. The nature of the game means inevitable contact with the head. Penalise it as harsh you you can but I don't think the vast majority happens in any event regardless of intent.
RowiE
Roar Rookie
Hi Greg, I don't see how making the tackle below the arm pit helps the situation. If it doesn't stop the swinging arm bouncing up how does it prevent the potential for a forearm coming in contact with a head. If you think it's too subjective, can you imagine the ref trying to work out whether or not initial contact was above or below the arm pit, when you have 2 or 3 players in the tackle. Particularly when the 3rd tackler comes in an the ball carrier is on the way down. I think making a below the arm pit type rule would provide significant issues. I don't think it's that difficult to determine if the tackler has artificially accelerated the arm in a tackle as opposed to a natural grabbing action. As Nat admitted above, while there's no such thing as a swinging arm, it is actually a normal tackling action! I have viewed a number of games and tried to identify instances of swinging arms and I think I can with some level of confidence. Certainly it's very easy to identify the obvious instances. Thanks for your comments.
RowiE
Roar Rookie
Thank Nat, I think your first sentence pretty much confirms my position, that being the swinging arm is now a normal part of tackling. Interestingly no-one has yet commented on the fact that you don't see swinging arm type head contacts in Junior or NRLW, I think this proves it's not a necessary part of the game. You agree that this is the way players are coached and talk about wrapping up the ball, but players wrap up the ball in under age and NRLW, it's clear that the swinging arm is coached for intimidation and ball dislodging. You don't need to wrap up the ball by swinging your arm, as I said it is an unnatural way to stop someone's progress. The lack of intent you mention is irrelevant, I recognise this, also lack of intent is not a plausible argument, it's a matter of whether it happened or not, intentional or otherwise. I'm not concerned with all incidental contact, I am only concerned with swinging arms, ie the act of deliberately accelerating your forearm and making contact with the arm/body. This is the action that morphs into head contact. Saying it doesn't happen very often is not a great argument for the player who was one of those instances and ends up with permanent injuries.
Greg
Roar Pro
Swinging arms that contact the head typically bounce off the attacking players upper arms or shoulders. To me the way to stop this isnt to stop the swinging arm, its to subjective as Paul has pointed out. It is to follow AFL (and i think rugby also) and make tackles need to be made below the arm pit. This way a player can still wrap up the arm carrying the ball, but if he attempts to do so with a "swinging arm" rather than a wrapping arm he risks it going wrong and being penalised. It also allows full forced front on tackles. Bounced up off an arm or shoulder should not be an excuse as that is the only result one could expect from a swinging arm to that area.
Tim Buck 3
Roar Rookie
It's an old problem RowiE. I played in the St-George JRLFC from 1967 to 1972 for Allawah and in all that time there was only one dirty player. I got my first coat hanger the first time we played the Colts and my head hit the ground and I was dizzy and slow to get up. The referee did nothing and looked impatient as if I was faking it. Five years later in a semi-final I got punched in the face and knocked out by the same colt early in the game. I woke up in extra-time, after staring into space for some time, to see the colts take an intercept to win the game. The hooker who hit me was still on the field. It is still a mystery to me why the referees did nothing about it. It was a time to act and they failed in their duty.
Nat
Roar Guru
There's no such thing as a swinging arm when it contacts the shoulders or below, it's called a tackle. Wrapping up the ball and the player to slow their momentum and contain the ball. Maybe we see it more often because this is the way defender are taught to tackle these days. In any case, if the defender makes contact with the head in any way it's a penalty. I'm not sure how you can have a game that relies on physically restraining and bring a person to the ground but remove incidental contact to the head. Further, in an average game there is between 600 - 700+ tackles made. How many head-high penalties do we see per game 1 or 2? I respect what you are trying to achieve and it is a serious cause. I think it is a little simplistic suggest that eliminating the swing arm will decrease head contact when 99.99% of players had no intention of attacking the head in the first place.
Nat
Roar Guru
NFL players have CTE. Injuries caused by a helmet though...
Wayne
Guest
Helmets.
Paul
Roar Guru
I get where you're coming from RowiE, but I suspect trying to enforce some sort of ban would be next to impossible. First of all, what would be classed as a swinging arm? If a player attempted a tackle his arm slipped off and he tried to re-engage by "swinging his arm" forward, based on what I read, that could be a penalty. When would a swinging arm be okay or would all be banned as you suggest in your last sentence? An ankle tap is a swinging arm for example. I don't disagree more needs to be done to protect player's heads, but am not sure this would be a good first step, or if it was to happen, would take quite some work to get right.