During the recent Australia vs England series Allan Alaalatoa, Jordan Petaia and Scott Sio all injured themselves executing tackles.
All three went in low, got their aim off a little and ended up injured.
About 25 minutes into Test 1, Alaalatoa tried to tackle Freddie Steward and knocked himself out on Steward’s leg.
About three minutes into Test 2, Petaia lined up Tommy Freeman who, unpredictably, stopped his run; Petaia kept his line and barrelled into him and, like Alaalatoa, knocked himself out on his opponents legs.
Scott Sio, about 50 minutes into Test 2, injured his shoulder trying to tackle Will Stuart and then accidentally copped Sam Underhill’s leg in the head as he fell.
In all three cases the players went in low to tackle and injured themselves. In my opinion, Petaia’s was the only one of the three that was clearly very poorly executed.
The two props made marginal errors that could probably happen to (even) most first-grade rugby players.
We all know that injuries have also happened recently where the tackles weren’t low enough.
In the New Zealand vs Ireland series, Angus Ta’avao and Andrew Porter were both carded for not going low enough. Ta’avao also suffered a concussion, as did Garry Ringrose, who he was in a split-second response, trying to tackle. Brodie Retallick’s jaw was broken as a result of Porter’s poorly executed tackle.
Going back to this year’s Six Nations, Charlie Ewel got a red for his tackle on James Ryan, and Rob Valetini got one for his shot on James Beard. Both made high impact, too-high contact to their opponents.
You may or may not agree with me that Ewel and Valetini were correctly given reds and Ta’avao was incorrectly given one. And you may think that Porter should have got a red too. I don’t. But the ins and outs of those aren’t my main point.
Why did I mention Alaalatoa’s, Sio’s and Petaia’s poorly executed tackles first, when no cards were given in either case? Because they illustrate that lowering your shoulders and tackling low isn’t always that easy.
As mentioned, in only one case – Petaia’s – was there a sudden change of direction from their opponent that caused them to get it wrong (though, yes, I think he should have been able to adjust).
The two props just lined themselves up a bit wrongly, even though they had time to do it right.
On the other hand Ta’avao’s and Porter’s cases were very different because neither of them was in a position to even try to get their tackle right.
Ta’avao’s happened very fast. In test 2, at 30 minutes in Ireland were moving the play right off a scrum. On second phase they move left about 25 metres.
The NZ forwards were trying to keep aligned and keep up. Watch Ta’avao hesitating and changing direction slightly as he tries to adjust.
James Lowe’s line is shut down very well by Cody Taylor and Sam Cane who’ve moved up well to help the backs. So a cornered Lowe makes about a two-foot pass to a more or less stationary Garry Ringrose, who decided to go back against the sense of the play, Ta’avao tried to react but couldn’t quickly enough.
There’s a sense in which Ta’avao was a victim of how good Taylor and Cane’s defensive coverage was. He wouldn’t have expected Ringrose to need to run it back right so quickly.
Unlike Ewels and Valetini, Ta’avao didn’t line up his opponent at all. He just suddenly had a centre running right past him in the opposite direction to the general play, so he tried to grab him. He wasn’t in any position to duck in and execute a good tackle. If had ducked in he probably would have got his head smashed sideways; he’d have been putting himself at risk of serious injury in order to stop Ringrose.
I don’t think we can expect that kind of speed and agility from a prop (and a tall prop at that), as Sam Cane tried to point out to the referee as a barely conscious Ta’avao was being sent off.
Porter’s was quite different. Retallick wasn’t trying to run around or past anyone. He was leading with his shoulder, trying to battering-ram his way in for an extra metre or two and make the contact as risk/pain-free for himself as possible.
Brodie Retallick. (Photo by Amilcar Orfali/Getty Images)
What is similar to the Ta’avao case is that if Porter had ducked into the tackle he’d probably have copped the shoulder or forearm into his own head, or, if he was lucky between the neck and the shoulder, which could be pretty harmful too.
Again, there was a pretty good chance he would have had to sacrifice his own well-being in order to execute the tackle. Unlike Ta’avao, Porter had time, but with that time a very reasonable self-preservation instinct kicked in.
On review, this was correctly identified as ‘an absorbing tackle’. If Porter had tried to tackle with force of his own he would probably have injured himself.
I think there’s a clear differentiating line that needs to be maintained here.
Whereas Ewels and Valetini lined up their opponents and put on a hard shot, Porter and Ta’avao didn’t. The former two were fully responsible for the damage they did. Porter and Ta’avao were responsible to a lesser degree for the damage they did.
Some might argue that red cards aren’t a question of intent. But what we’re dealing with in the Porter and Ta’avao cases isn’t a question of intent or otherwise, but of ability: what each was really capable of doing.
The broader point is that it’s easy to say that players should always bend low into tackles and if they did we wouldn’t have concussions and neck injuries, but it’s not always as simple as that.
We – the rugby public and referees and players – care about the number of concussions and we care about the damage that it does to players long term. In order to make that concern matter we want to take a no-tolerance view on these head-high hits.
But at times it’s going to be the tackler who’s going to take the dangerous head-contact by going low.
I have no solutions to argue for, I only want to argue that the problem is complex and refereeing needs to take this into account.
Malo
Guest
You rarely get concussions from high tackles. All mine came from tackling, none came from head highs or dangerous tackles. Now the players are always fresh due to huge benches and lots of breaks. Power now rather than endurance means bigger bodies and faster momentum plus now players just ram into each other league style . Bring back rucking.
Monorchid
Roar Rookie
Thanks for the article pm. I don't think that any of the Roarers or anyone else are pretending that avoiding head injuries is simple. In a sport of collisions by big fit blokes, making tackles, ducking into rucks, and charges for the try line, it's inevitable. The only part of your article that I agree with is in your last paragraph. It's complex. Harry Jones makes the same observation, drily, but correctly I believe. The complexity is mostly for administrators who must be fearing an avalanche of legal claims. Probably depending on the outcome of those NH court cases. And they show no sign of knowing what to do. Except for drawing large salaries. You raise the matter of head gear later. This is a hoary old chestnut. Any GP (mine for one) will tell you that head gear cannot prevent concussion. NFL players have a long record of CTE trauma even with their crash helmets. Helmets don't stop the brain sloshing around inside our skulls on impact. You cite your experience with oriental boxing. As someone who was a judoka for 16 years, and who commited heresy by straying into Shotokan and Shukakai karate, for a while, I'm not sure that we can find a solution in eastern philosophy. I don't think my long suffering GP would subscribe to your teacher's neck muscle theory. The only way to stop the problem is to ban either rugby code. And that ain't going to happen.
pm
Roar Rookie
In Gridiron they still have numerous concussion cases despite helmets and shoulder pads. I do a bit of muay thai and a trainer i used to have thinks neck strength helps a lot in preventing concussions. I think he knows what he's talking about generally, but that's probably a sort of active-resistance/tension that only applies for fairly hard hits - jabs, crosses; kicks and elbows that only connect after their turning apex. But i suspect most rugby hits are alot harder than even most muay thai fighters hit, even when they fully connect
Khun Phil
Roar Rookie
Nice to see a totally irrelevant comment from KoK.There always needs to be at least one!
Paul D
Roar Rookie
It may not serve zero purpose, but it may still only provide a negligible benefit at best. It's just physics. The severity of a concussion is due to the velocity a brain hits the inside of a skull. You can think of it in the context of one of the equations of motion. Firstly, what happens in the skull (Final Velocity)^2 = (Initial Velicity)^2 + 2x(Acceleration)x (Distance)S The distance between your brain and skull is fixed and the initial relative velocity is zero. Therefore, the velocity your brain hits the inside of your skull is directly related to how fast it accelerates. So you must reduce acceleration. Consider your head hitting something and the same equation. (Final Velocity)^2 = (Initial Velicity)^2 + 2x(Acceleration)x (Distance)S For a specific impact, the velocity you are travelling is fixed. Therefore, the only way to reduce acceleration is to increase the distance of the acceleration (or deceleration in our case). That is, the thickness of the padding. So if you are running into a nice, big squishy pillow you can make an appreciable reduction on the rate of deceleration. In a practical sense though, the tiny distances that headgear provide for deceleration mean that are relatively useless for concussion.
pm
Roar Rookie
Does seem doubtful it serves no purpose. Should ask a regular wearer like Matfield or Pocock if they thought it helped much. Though perhaps by that stage the damage was done
pm
Roar Rookie
I've raised the headgear question in comments on here once or twice. I do wonder why it seems to not be much part of the discussion
KingofKings
Guest
It’s not just rugby yawnion’s clumsy application of the TMO and trigger happy refs. The scrum still has its issues and there is too much stoppage in play. NRL will emerge as the most popular winter sport in the coming years in NZ
Dally M
Roar Rookie
Nice work pm & precisely the reason we should have 20 min red cards, a decent citing officer looking at these game afterwards & less of a chocolate wheel approach to suspension at the judiciary.
Stu
Roar Rookie
Headgear isn’t the solution, but if I hit someone on the head repeatedly with a wooden mallet, they’d honestly be just as happy with, or without, headgear on? To start with, even though headgear’s not the solution, they’re nuts not mandating it for every player, even just as a gesture toward indicating the head matters, if nothing else.
Olly
Roar Rookie
The only way to stop head contact in rugby is to ban rugby. To me the area of focus for protecting players are the steps taken after the incident. Player rest, monitoring, tests etc.
Paul D
Roar Rookie
I don’t think anyone is pretending it’s simple. As you point out it is too complex to completely eliminate it ever happening. But that is not the point. The laws are intended to lessen it SFARP (so far as reasonably practical). Anyone who works in risk assessment will be familiar with that term. They would also be familiar with the hierarchy of controls. 1. Elimination. (Not possible in a contact sport.) 2. Substitution. (Play touch? Not going to happen.) 3. Engineering Controls. (N/A) Which leaves us with (4) Administrative Controls and (5) PPE. Now we know that headgear doesn’t help much, and despite advances in materials it is unlikely to ever do much. So all we have are administrative controls. Laws. When I compare Rugby to NRL I can see that the laws have worked in that there is a lot less head contact. It will never be none, but the important thing is to lower it SFARP. And the best measure of shielding the game from being sued out of existence is to be shown to be best practice. NRL does not yet have the situation Rugby is facing in the North. But should it happen I think they will be in for a torrid time. As much as we complain about the way Rugby has gone with perhaps going too far. It is what will protect players and the game long term.
Rhys
Roar Rookie
Have to agree with Dr below, and it’s been something I’ve always thought, rugby will never be free of head injury. This is especially true as the size and speed of the game has increased and continues to increase. World Rugby’s crusade against high tackles is, IMO, bungled and causing the spectacle to degrade whilst ignoring other key areas of the game that make these injuries. Until there’s a push to change the game’s evolution away from larger contact, we’ll continue to be in Groundhog Day.
FrancisF
Roar Pro
Its time for World Rugby to serioydly adopt NETBALL rules for the rugby code so as to finally resolve the contentious (and often not, ridiculous application of) head-contact rules to discard some of the nonsensical red-card decisions and also the netball rules for the code would prevent serious injuries BECAUSE referees MUST apply some of these dumb rules so that players can keep their beautiful faces and their crop of hair fairly intact. You see, the tackler is caught in a no-win situation in that split second collision: you tackle low, you get badly injured. You ACCIDENTALLY ( note the emphasis) touch the opponent’s head, you get MANDATORILY thrown out of the field by the referee with either a yellow or red card. “Mitigating circumstances” ??? - that is a PENALTY!!! The rugby code is becoming a joke with some of these stringent rules being applied to PROFESSIONAL rugby… evolving to become a sissy game.
Doctordbx
Roar Rookie
The penny is dropping. Rugby and a world free from contact to the head are mutually exclusive.
Otago Man
Roar Rookie
Your main point is critical PM. The tackle height reduction will not stop concussion in itself. Like you I don't know what the solution is but there are other aspects of the game that could be looked at it to help with this.
Harry Jones
Expert
It’s complicated. Thanks, pm.
Biltong
Guest
Cheslin Kolbe broke his jaw making a tackle in the third test vs Wales as well.