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Opinion
The NRL is fixing a problem that doesn’t particularly exist with its latest crackdown over contact on kickers, which will lead to even more players taking a dive to get an easy penalty.
By all means, any contact which is high or late should be penalised and lead to a sin bin but that’s no longer the benchmark for what constitutes an infringement.
NRL head of football Graham Annesley showed a range of examples of recent incidents at his weekly media briefing on Monday that were the kinds of tackles that have been made for decades.
Nothing particularly vicious or sinister, just a defender jumping into a kicker as they put boot to ball, applying pressure so that they don’t have a free swing at putting the Steeden exactly where they want.
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Annesley clarified that the refs have been instructed to look at four indicators – whether a defender is late, high contact to the head or neck, the danger of the contact causing an unacceptable risk of injury and “this issue of vulnerability – that’s where one or both feet are off the ground or a player is off balance”.
He conceded “it may not look dangerous” as he used this Coen Hess tackle on Nicho Hynes as an example but refs will continue to penalise defenders for such contact.
Cooper Cronk, who spent 400-plus games as a halfback at NRL, Origin and Test level receiving similar whacks to the one that Hess put on Hynes, was bewildered by the penalty being awarded to Cronulla.
“To me there’s not much in that, at all. It’s not late, it’s not high, he’s wrapped his arms around, the only thing is that Hynes’ legs are off the ground,” he said on Fox League commentary at first glance on the replay.
Annesley basically wants any defender who is applying kick pressure to rush up to their opponent and they can make contact as long as they don’t do much more than give them a friendly cuddle.
That ain’t the rugby league DNA.
“It’s not just the referees being pedantic, it’s not the NRL overreacting,” he argued.
“When a player is off the ground and is put on the ground from that position of being vulnerable in midair, everyone loses control of the outcome.”
The NRL can only control so much, particular in a rough and tumble sport like rugby league.
“It’s too late after a player lands awkwardly on his head, after he lands awkwardly on his ankle and does ligament damage or breaks an ankle or does an Achilles or a knee, you name it, everything that can happen when you when you’re when you fall on the ground awkwardly,” he added.
Nicho Hynes reacts after he is tackled by Coen Hess. (Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)
“It’s about trying to protect players. One of the tactics in trying to take kickers out without high contact or overly vigorous contact is to make sure that the kicker can’t chase, to make sure they can’t put players in front of them onside. And it’s just not necessary.”
If you’re a kicker in general play now, you may as well wear one of those bibs with the red cross on it to indicate “cannot be tackled”.
Maroons coach Billy Slater said on The Sunday Footy Show on the weekend that “the fabric of the game is being damaged because you can hardly touch a kicker now” and that the match officials were “too jumpy because all the talk about player safety”.
And you can be sure that players will now start sprawling to the turf after the slightest impact now when they put boot to ball knowing that they’ll get rewarded by the ref if the defender has made contact that’s not even high or late but catches them in mid-air that split second after their kick.
It’s much harder for a defender to rush up to a kicker with the aim of effecting a chargedown or distracting them from their task without some sort of impact.
As with any aspect of the game, if a defender hits a player late or high, they should be penalised but the kicker is now getting preferential treatment compared to when a player passes the ball and gets hit almost instantaneously afterwards.
Again, if a player passes the ball and a defender deliberately whacks them in a cheap shot a second or two after they’ve offloaded the pill, then they should be marched to the sin bin but this kick-pressure crackdown is indeed pedantic and an overreaction despite the NRL claiming otherwise.
And the NRL certainly doesn’t need to give players any more incentive to stay down in order to gain a penalty.
Rugby league fans like to look down their nose at the scourge of simulation in soccer but the gap between the two footballing codes is narrowing.
If you think you’ve been the victim of a crusher tackle, stay down and hold the back of your neck.
Same if you think a defender has dropped their hip onto your legs, deliberately or otherwise. Grab your calf area, take your time before you get back to your feet and wait to see if you “earn” a penalty.
Or if a hit was high, take an extra 5-10 seconds to get up to play-the-ball. Not too long though, you don’t want that pesky doctor in the bunker thinking you’re concussed because then you’ll need to go off for a HIA … unless that is also your aim because your stint is coming to an end and you’re going to have to burn an interchange anyway.
There was a variation on this theme last week when a veteran player who has a history of trying to evade the long arm of the law used the tactic of grabbing at his lower leg to feign some sort of foot injury after a borderline high tackle.
The rat-cunning player had devised a loophole – you get to stop play so the bunker checks the contact but don’t run the risk of the call coming that you have to go off for an HIA.
Players will do whatever they can to gain an advantage and with this latest crackdown, the NRL has inadvertently given them another option to exploit the latest officiating over-reaction.