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Opinion
The new interpretation of NRL rules surrounding head contact has not been universally popular.
There’s been consternation from players, fans, coaches and pundits suggesting that the game will be fundamentally altered and the entertainment value weakened.
These new rules effectively amount to the criminalisation of making contact with the head, even accidentally. It’s the continuation of a laudable player-safety policy that recently saw the introduction of the 18th substitute.
Ricky Stuart, among others, railed against such changes at the weekend, and his concern that we may be fundamentally altering the nature of the game is understandable. We should not be looking to gentrify rugby league beyond recognition. But the game does have a duty of care to the players whether or not the players want it. It’s a question of where the line is drawn.
If the authorities can prove that these new rules result in a significant reduction in blows to the head, then it’s something to seriously consider. But the manner in which the changes were brought in strike me as being of haphazard, last-minute, ‘rugby league’ typicality.
There were no trial runs in the state cups or reserve competitions. The new rules came in midseason and mistimed – the clubs were told it was going to begin the week preceding, possibly explaining some of the lax play at Magic Round – and seemingly without prior announcement if the surprised indignation in the media is anything to go by.
(Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)
There’s confusion as to what constitutes a red or a yellow, and quite frankly, after spending their entire playing lives cultivating tackling techniques, it will take some time to rewrite the muscle memory.
But we can also do away with some of the hyperbolic fearmongering about the game’s numeracy. If this rule is set to become the norm, then we won’t have 17 bookings a weekend ad infinitum. It may take a while for players to adjust, and the new techniques may start off somewhat clunky, but ultimately they will adapt and learn to stop making those challenges.
Everything we’ve gleaned about Peter V’landys’s personality suggests he won’t be backing down from this rule change. For better or worse this could be here to stay. Such is the price of having the game ruled in the benevolent dictator model.
Is it possible to draw any positives from this beyond the ‘if it saves just one life’ health myopia? Admittedly it’s quite a nice positive. Perhaps I’m taking a more optimistic view of this because selfishly, for all that I like the heavy contact, it’s not why I fell in love with the game.
On Monday night I attended live sport for the first time in 14 months, 12 days, 20 hours and 37 minutes to see part-timers Swinton and Dewsbury clash in the second-tier Championship. In that time I’ve missed the heavy collisions, and nothing braces you for hearing the bodily impact of players charging into each other at such speeds.
But I was more enamoured with a piece of ingenious deception that allowed centre Mitch Cox to bamboozle the Dewsbury defence and slip through skilfully. It was a standout piece of individual skill and restarted an encapsulating if ultimately unsuccessful comeback.
The point is that sport is a matter of personal preference. I’ve never been a fan of the mentality that says ‘stick it up your jumper for five sets, then kick the ball into the atmosphere and go again’. So I’d have thought lower tackling would open up the possibility of more offloads, raising the prospect of more off-the-cuff continuous sets that makes the game more unpredictable.
If they stick with this, then it will change rugby league. Providing the rules are applied consistently and are clearly spelled out for all to understand and the benefits are made clear, change isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It could lead to the ball being in play longer through more offloads, more defensive breaks with defenders and viewers left second-guessing what comes next.
I suppose that is just me being selfish. But the game will still retain its hard edges, its ferocious reputation for bravery and no-nonsense knocks. Within that, the authorities should not be reticent about maintaining long-term player safety. The two do not have to be in contradictory opposition.
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