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Souths coach Jason Demetriou has fired up at the recent spate of hip-drop tackles in the NRL, describing the technique as something liable to start a blue in training, let alone a match.
Demetriou was speaking after the Bunnies’ win over the Bulldogs, in which Jacob Preston was binned for a hip-drop on Izaac Thompson that forced the winger from the field and potentially out of next week’s trip to the Dolphins. He avoided a charge for the incident from the Match Review Panel.
“I think there was a few hip-drops,” said the coach. “There was at least four of them in the game. We keep saying that it’s not a problem in the game, but if that tackle happens on a training field, I can guarantee you that the teammates aren’t happy about it. Your own teammates are filthy if you do that.
“I don’t know why if we’re not doing it at training, we’re doing it on the field.
“I get that there’s circumstances where it can be an accident, where there’s some swing in the tackle. I understand that. But when you’re side by side and you’re losing your legs to drop your hips down, it’s not a way to take people to ground. It’s a lazy way.
“We don’t practice it. There’s no way that it would happen at training and I can’t stress that enough. That doesn’t happen at training. Coaches and teammates would not let that happen so I don’t know why we’re accepting that on the field.”
Later in the evening on Channel 9’s coverage, Bulldogs GM Phil Gould fired up at the tackle, describing it as an ‘accident’ and taking aim at the NRL for there ongoing crackdown.
“I saw three blokes suspended last week that shouldn’t have been suspended,” said Gould. “If we keep sending people off the field and suspending them for that, we’re not going to have any players left.
Jacob Preston. (Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)
“I don’t know what they think else could have happened. When they say this is a hip-drop tackle, what else did you want him to do to avoid that?
“That’s just an accident. People get hurt. We can’t punish someone every time someone gets hurt. This is professional football, it’s not tiddlywinks. That is not a hip-drop tackle. It’s not even a penalisable offence, it’s not even a sin bin offence.
“There’s three blokes doing time out of the game from last week that should not be out of the game. They’re not the traditional hip-drop tackles that we want out of the game, that’s not what it looks like. That’s not it.”
Demetriou said the recent directives from the NRL were helping, but teams should do more to police themselves.
“I think the game is doing a great job trying to do what they can,” he said. “It’s up to the clubs to show some onus on it because it’s going to affect your team somewhere. You’re going to lose a high-quality player to a hip-drop, which is a tackle that can be avoided in my opinion.
“It’s a poor habit that creeps in. One of the things we talk about is keeping your feet, keeping your feet in collision for as long as you can so you can have greater control, but sometimes as a player you’ve got to accept that you’re not in a great position.
“But to drop your hips on the back of someone’s legs – look, I don’t think anyone is going out there to do it intentionally and this isn’t me having a crack at anybody in particular or at Canterbury, but as a game we can do a bit more to avoid it.”
Match review committee chairman Luke Patten defended the decision on Saturday by saying it “did not identify the important key indicators of a hip-drop in this incident”.
“The defender will generally have a grip of the opposition player, using that grip to lift or maintain their body weight to then drop or swing their hips in an unnatural way. (Instead), the MRC believed that Preston was attempting a one-on-one steal and fell away from the ball, accidentally landing on the ankle/foot of player Thompson.”
NRL head of football Graeme Anneseley also went into bat for the on-field officials.
“The match officials had to make their decision on the field very quickly, and in this case they did not give sufficient consideration to the attempted ball strip impacting the outcome of the tackle,” he said.
“While the opinion of the match officials in this case conflicted with the opinion of the match review committee, the NRL will continue to support strong action against offenders as and when required in the interests of player safety.”
Souths hooker Damien Cook backed his coach’s view that, even if it happened between teammates, it would be seen as a major incident.
“Sometimes you hear it out on the field but definitely at training, there’s a blow up straight away to get into them,” he said.
“Guys are being competitive and put themselves in the wrong position but we try to recognise it straight away. I’ve no doubt other teams do that as well.
“It’s a such a hard one, because the players are trying to do their job and bring the player down.
Cook backed the current campaign from refs to punish the tackle in the here and now rather than waiting for the Match Review Panel.
“We saw a crackdown in 2021 and it went away,” said the hooker. “It’s starting to come back in again.
(Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)
“Things were put in place for concussion and that’s what we need to do with hip-drops because it’s player welfare.
“We’re trying to look after each other out on the field and minimise injuries, because there’s enough injuries and contact in the game as it is. Obviously we’re out there trying to beat each other up and we’re trying to get the win, but nobody is going out there to hurt anyone on purpose.
“We’ve got to bring some light to it I think – I’m not sure how to do that, whether it’s fines or suspensions but the more we shine light on it the more players will be aware of it.”