Rugby league legend Brad Fittler says acts like Patrick Carrigan’s “crap” hip-drop tackle on Jackson Hastings have no place in the game and offenders should be rubbed out for far more than one month.
The NRL Judiciary suspended Carrigan for four matches after Hastings suffered a fractured fibula and ankle damage in the tackle during Wests Tigers’ 32-18 victory over Brisbane on Saturday night.
While Hastings won’t play again this season, Carrigan will be back a week before the finals and Fittler believes the Broncos lock got off “very lightly”.
“The only way to get rid of those tackles is to suspend the people further,” Fittler told Nine’s Wide World of Sports radio.
“It’s a practised action. It’s about grabbing the hips, putting weight on the knees and ankles and collapsing those joints.
“And in this particular instance, Jackson Hastings broke his leg.
“So what this kind of tackle is designed to do is collapse the people’s legs underneath them, so I feel like he got off very lightly.
“It’s a crap tackle.”
Brisbane coach Kevin Walters labelled suggestions NRL players were coached to perform hip-drop tackles like Carrigan’s on Hastings as “nonsense”.
Fittler, though, clearly doesn’t agree with his former Queensland State of Origin coaching counterpart.
“It’s the ones that are practised – (like) the chicken wing – they’re all designed around the joints and putting them into positions that immobilises them and stops their movement,” the Blues mentor said.
“I can understand from a point of view of it’s beneficial to make a tackle, but they’re dangerous. When you’re playing with these parts of their body, for instance on the weekend, you broke a bloke’s leg.
“Maybe every now and again you get caught in that position and sometimes things happen because people are moving in tackles.
“But there’s those ones where they sit behind and pull them down … and obviously it’s been going on for a while because a lot of players do it.
“Patrick Carrigan’s not the only bloke doing it, but I think this should be the last one because the next one should go for longer.”
© AAP
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