Game’s gone soft, huh? League's tough enough without dangerous incidents getting feather touch from judiciary

Must be Parra… Sorry I tagged you as Melbourne… :stoked:

I won’t say what team I follow but I’ll give you a real solid guess. I follow 3 teams. My team, and then any team playing Melbourne or a Ricky Stuart Coached team.

There was a “reckless” tackle that resulted in head contact. You’re on about CTE, yet willing to allow reckless tackles as long as they don’t go wrong. Well I highly doubt in the future if legal action is taken against the NRL, that it will be seen that duty of care was appropriate, if the NRL only ever punishes “reckless” tackles if they result in head contact. You say that we see punishments differ based on the outcome. While I agree with you, my argument is that’s where the NRL is getting it wrong and are opening themselves up to liability. We correctly penalise players if they tackle a player In the air whether they are put in a dangerous position or hurt or not, because it can go so wrong so quickly.. We correctly punish players for going to or past the horizontal because it can go so wrong so quickly. In the past as long as they weren’t put on their head, it was all good. It took Alex McKinnon’s incident to produce massive changes In that area. In wider workplace society “riding the hook” in a crane scenario is outlawed because it can go so wrong so quickly, in spite of an accident in probably 1:10,000 instance of it. Same with seat belts, it’s outlawed because the consequences of not wearing them are horrific when 1:1000000 instances of driving without a seatbelt go so wrong, and you’re only hurting yourself. It’s 100% hypocritical to say something needs to be done about CTE and then allow tackles that could so easily result in a head clash. It’s 100% hypocritical to say something needs to be done about CTE, then only punish an action if there’s pain/impact to a ball runner’s head. In what other work place can your boss (coach) train you, encourage you, and punish you if you don’t do it, to do something that in say 1:200 instances of you doing it, is going to result in you getting a high speed head on head contact and a concussion? Especially When in the 199:200 instances you do exactly the same thing as you do as the 1:200 action, and then factors outside of your control in the 1:200 action results in you getting hit in the head, and you or the other person hets hurt, then you are punished for it.

See you in a few weeks - good luck tonight (I think you’re a Storm fan, right?)

Players can use bad technique and be as reckless as they like. If it comes off and no one is hurt, then fine. But when it goes wrong they face the consequences. This is applied to every single tackle on a rugby league field I wrote that three weeks ago… it’s completely consistent with Suli’s tackle, even though the outcomes were different…

There’s a difference though Use bad technique and injure someone else - penalty, bin, suspension, etc Use bad technique and injure yourself *shrug emoji* Surely that difference isn’t too hard to see…?

So after the Moses Suli first tackle on JWH in the ANZAC game. Same tackle as we discussed but Moses knocks himself out this time. Was the tackle not reckless under your definition? Shouldn’t he now be suspended?

How do you get that out of anything I wrote…? 1. Theres a huge difference between two players accidentally bumping heads in a tackle and a defender recklessly racing into a tackle with poor technique in an upright position 2. It’s not about the “possibility” of a head clash. May smashed Walsh’s face in. We’ve been through - a defender can throw as many swinging arms into tackles as they like. It’s not a penalty until they hit someone. This is no different Players can use bad technique and be as reckless as they like. If it comes off and no one is hurt, then fine. But when it goes wrong they face the consequences. This is applied to every single tackle on a rugby league field If a defender races in and accidentally makes forearm to head contact he’s penalised. Ditto fist to head, elbow to head, knee to head, etc. even if it’s accidental it can be graded as careless or reckless, but head to head contact is just accidental and no penalty 100% of the time regardless of how reckless or careless the defender has been It’s actually inconsistent that head clashes get treated so differently to any other part of the body…

Then penalise every tackle that has the possibility of the head clash. But you’ll have to penalise what is right now 3/4 of every FRF hit up.

I’ve just given plenty of examples where the outcome determines the penalty This technique of racing in completely upright is a relatively new thing in the game I guarantee no kid that has ever played the game was taught to tackle like Taylan May did. It’s extremely high risk, has a small margin of error, is dangerous and is preventable Why will it be “mayhem”? This doesn’t happen that often A few years ago, kickers were getting belted. They were getting hit in mid air. Legs taken out. Tackled late. We heard all the same excuses “I was committed” “I couldn’t pull out” “I can’t just disappear” “it’s an accident” But it was penalised out of the game. Players and coaches responded. You see contact on a kicker occasionally but rarely see them taken out This isn’t any different. If defenders were held accountable for head to head contact, it would stop I’d prefer if this wasn’t an issue and we didn’t have to worry. But we can’t just have players getting obliterated by something that is completely preventable

As soon as you go down this path it will be mayhem and completely change this game forever. You keep saying May’s tackle was reckless. But it was no more reckless than 100 other tackles per game that don’t end up with an accidental head clash. Two identical tackles and one has a change in circumstance after it’s too late to change the defensive decision? On gets penalised and one doesn’t? This is absurd. Either the attempt is illegal or it isn’t. The outcome (head clash or not) can’t be the thing that determines a penalty.

You can. We already have it You can throw the world’s biggest haymaker. If you miss, there’s no charge. If you hit someone in the face, it’s penalised Same with high contact in a tackle. We already have different penalties for the same tackle based on the injury outcome To use your lifting example - a player can have a bad technique and put his hand between the legs and lift in every tackle, but he will only be penalised once a player goes past 90 degrees. He’s still penalised for the outcome, not the technique. The outcomes start at 90 degrees and get progressively worse up to dumping someone on their head This is the same. If you use a bad technique but it works and you don’t hurt anyone, fine you got away with it. But if you use the same technique and smash someone’s face in, you can’t claim accident. That’s perfectly in the nature of this. It’s a high risk, reckless defensive style

I’m sorry Baz but you can’t have a rule where the same attempt by two tacklers is penalised based on a head clash or lack of head clash. Just the same as you can’t have a rule where a player that gets inverted draws a penalty only if they land on their head. That means that we have to start penalising every tackle like the live referee said. They have a duty of care to bend their backs. That means a standard FRF hit up where the first tackler stays bolt upgright and wraps up the ball (like the 100 a game we see now) must also be penalised if we are serious about this. If you are as serious about CTE as what you say then you have to penalise both tackles.

Because if he hit him low it is considered a late hit. The MRC ruled he tried to pull out of the tackle; if he bends (which would require him to brace) and Walsh busts ribs he is out for a late hit. In terms of hitting the head, he tried to pull out of the tackle. The issue is that they both arrived at the same place at the same time travelling at speed. They both jumped and they hit heads. I can see the argument is that the defender shouldn’t rush in like that. If so, that is a perfectly fair interpretation. But if that is what we want defenders to do we need to either a) accept this creates an imbalance between attacker and defender or b) find some other rule amendments that help to address the balance and ultimately help protect attackers.

Years ago when player welfare become an issue the dopey sports scientist looked at statistics and found injuries happen when players were tired....ie:both defensively and offence players would make errors that led to injuries. So these dopey scientist came to the league and said''If we have unlimited interchange then we won't have depleted players and injuries would lesson. What these Einsteins did not understand that now for 80 non stop minutes you have fresh players hammering the offensive line.Wingers and outside backs needed to become second rowers so the Bradley Clyde big mobile forwards become the Bradley Clones in the back line. This created a terrible mismatch at the grassroot levels with this unlimited interchange leading to 130kg behemoths and park football saw 120kg 12 year olds making cannon fodder or late maturing boys from certain ethnic groups. Where was player welfare in all this.It was gone....and the footballers were replaced by''athletes''. Players were getting hammered from pillar to post and the image of the trophy of Provan and Authurson,the big man vs the small man was gone. No longer were we to see the later part of the half where the small man shined and carved up those fumbling boring goliaths. Fans did not mind because the league built it self on virtue of the big hit. Even though they have reduced the interchange it is still too frequent and the centre 4 defenders are on non stop rotation and there is no space for the little man. Remember in the hard days of the 70's and 80's 75kg men could compete. Not today because the game is about field position and not possession which it was in those days of the hard men. The beginning of the end of rugby league was mostly done by a referee.Bill harrigan destroyed the ruck...which was a pivot point in the game...a contest..But he had it in mind to make grey areas of the game and shift responsibility from the referee to a host of ghost like figures like the bunker and linesmen..As long as they get out of the parking lot. I first heard it said by the great coach Warren Ryan when reading a ham radio and scanners magazine.There was Warren saying on the radio which was intercepted and he said''Bill Harrigan is a grand stand finish referee...As long as the game has a grand stand finish all the punters will go home feeling like they got a mouth full of a chance of winning'',...Now every referee is a grand stand finish referee and player welfare is determined by the solicitors and legal department in News Ltd,,,,Funny how the owner of the game is the one who discredits the league players the most with revelations...Maybe destroying the game is their agenda because if soccer rose more subscriptions for cable or fox sports would be sold. But what do I know?

:laughing: :laughing: :laughing: Au contraire. We were coached with the mantra "Get 'em around the legs, they can't run without legs".

Ah, Penrith junior… no doubt you were trained your whole career to tackle like May…

No TB, he got me there fair and square. I humbly concede that I am not now, nor have I ever been, a professional rugby league player. The pinnacle of my RL career was winning a premiership with the Colyton Colts Under 13s. Played on till the end of high school but never again achieved such dizzying heights. My opinions on this RL fan site are, perhaps surprisingly, merely the opinions of a RL fan.

The point is just because most of the time people don’t get hurt, it doesn’t mean it should be legal.

You’re literally making things up. He jumps. Both feet are off the ground.