Alex McKinnon possibly Quadriplegic - Mclean guilty of dangerous throw - 7 weeks

[Usain Bolt]

McKinnon is losing in the court of public opinion. Poor rangas can't win anything

 

[Bronco18]

How doesn't smith saying "if he doesn't suck his head, that doesn't happen" NOT blame McKinnon exactly? It's doing exactly that as far as I can see.

It's easy to throw the word "blame" around... like RWB said, Smith was defending his team mate. Saying he "blamed" McKinnon frames it as though he thought McKinnon was morally culpable, which is absurd and disingenuous.

I disagree with what Smith said - it's a penalty regardless of whether McKinnon ducked his head or not. McKinnon goes beyond the horizontal. What Smith argued on the field had some merit IMO in the case of McLean's judiciary hearing, but is totally irrelevant to whether it was a penalty on the field or not. It was clear as daylight McKinnon went past the horizontal.

 

[THE CHAMP]

I cant say im surprised at the number of idiots that just lapped up the 60 minutes bullshit.

 

[MrAnonymous]

Yeh its f**ked up. Had to laugh at the doom and gloom rapist music they put on when Smith come on screen.

 

[billygilmore]

Poor Alex, hope he made some half decent money out of the interview cause he really hasn't come out of this looking good.

 

[Danish]

It's easy to throw the word "blame" around... like RWB said, Smith was defending his team mate. Saying he "blamed" McKinnon frames it as though he thought McKinnon was morally culpable, which is absurd and disingenuous.

I disagree with what Smith said - it's a penalty regardless of whether McKinnon ducked his head or not. McKinnon goes beyond the horizontal. What Smith argued on the field had some merit IMO in the case of McLean's judiciary hearing, but is totally irrelevant to whether it was a penalty on the field or not. It was clear as daylight McKinnon went past the horizontal.

Morally culpable? What the hell are you on about?

Smith, clear as day, said that if Mckinnon doesn't duck his head, that doesn't happen. They are his exact words. He then argued that if he didn't duck his head, it wouldn't have even been a penalty.

There is no grey area there. He was claiming that the only reason Mckinnon got hurt, and the only reason a penalty was awarded, was through Mckinnon's own actions. Which is just absurd bullshit.

The idiots at an NRL judiciary might be able to be fooled by such nonsense, but if/when Mckinnon pursues a civil case the lawyers trying to blame his head duck are going to be made to look like fools

 

[RWB]

How doesn't smith saying "if he doesn't suck his head, that doesn't happen" NOT blame McKinnon exactly? It's doing exactly that as far as I can see.

The injury was caused by the tacklers. They lifted him, put him in a bad position, and continued driving the tackle into the ground. Every part of the tackle that they could control was done dangerously and illegally. McKinnon not taking good enough evasive action to prevent their f**k up from severely injuring him does not elevate any guilt from their actions in any way.

The injury was caused by an extremely unfortunate event. Putting the blame on either Mckinnon or Mclean is naive.

Smith asked a perfectly legitimate question, why was Mclean's tackle penalised but two almost identical tackles previous in the game didn't get penalised. The fact that the other two tackles previous didn't result in an injury doesn't make them any less of a penalty.

Smith's a grub but in this instance he did nothing wrong and asked a perfectly legitimate question.

I'm over all the political correctness.

 

[Danish]

The injury was caused by an extremely unfortunate event. Putting the blame on either Mckinnon or Mclean is naive.

Smith asked a perfectly legitimate question, why was Mclean's tackle penalised but two almost identical tackles previous in the game didn't get penalised. The fact that the other two tackles previous didn't result in an injury doesn't make them any less of a penalty.

Smith's a grub but in this instance he did nothing wrong and asked a perfectly legitimate question.

I'm over all the political correctness.

Its very simple to assign blame. It lays mostly with Maclean, being that he did all the lifting, and then partially with the Brommich boys who continued to drive in the tackle. End of story.

It was clearly unintentional, and none of the tacklers seemed to be going into that tackle with any aggression or intent to cause any harm. But that doesn't make them any less culpable.

If you are speeding in a car, lose control, and severely injure a pedestrian (even one that doesn't take good enough evasive action for your liking), you are still 100% responsible for their injuries and will be charged as such. No different here.

 

[East Coast Tiger]

Maybe one of Smith's 17 contracts could pay Alex's bills.

#nothisgo

 

[RWB]

Its very simple to assign blame. It lays mostly with Maclean, being that he did all the lifting, and then partially with the Brommich boys who continued to drive in the tackle. End of story.

It was clearly unintentional, and none of the tacklers seemed to be going into that tackle with any aggression or intent to cause any harm. But that doesn't make them any less culpable.

If you are speeding in a car, lose control, and severely injure a pedestrian (even one that doesn't take good enough evasive action for your liking), you are still 100% responsible for their injuries and will be charged as such. No different here.

Yes lets compare a conscious & deliberate act like speeding with an NRL tackle gone wrong.

FFS! This gets more ridiculous by the minute.

 

[Danish]

Yes lets compare a conscious & deliberate act like speeding with an NRL tackle gone wrong.

FFS! This gets more ridiculous by the minute.

What part of making a lifting tackle is not conscious or deliberate? Was Mclean in a coma at the time?

He meant to lift him and he meant to drive him. He just didn't mean to injure him.

 

[Bronco18]

Morally culpable? What the hell are you on about?

Smith, clear as day, said that if Mckinnon doesn't duck his head, that doesn't happen. They are his exact words. He then argued that if he didn't duck his head, it wouldn't have even been a penalty.

There is no grey area there. He was claiming that the only reason Mckinnon got hurt, and the only reason a penalty was awarded, was through Mckinnon's own actions. Which is just absurd bullshit.

The idiots at an NRL judiciary might be able to be fooled by such nonsense, but if/when Mckinnon pursues a civil case the lawyers trying to blame his head duck are going to be made to look like fools

Big words are hard....

Again like RWB said, what Smith argued was that it was an accident. Obviously McKinnon ducking his head played a role in it. Is McKinnon to blame for the incident? No. Does it warrant a penalty if McKinnon doesn't duck his head? IMO yes, as he went past the horizontal. I do however think it's a more ambiguous case.

If McKinnon didn't duck his head though, it certainly doesn't look worse than any other lifting tackle that happens any other freackin' week.

 

[Bronco18]

What part of making a lifting tackle is not conscious or deliberate? Was Mclean in a coma at the time?

He meant to lift him and he meant to drive him. He just didn't mean to injure him.

Mate psychoanalysis should not be used to determine penalties for a tackle... It's too difficult to ascertain whether an action was deliberate or careless. Players run at each other very fast and are very strong - of course it's easy for a tackle like this to go wrong by accident.

The NRL should just impose strict liability for any tackle that goes past the horizontal, deliberate or not.

 

[Generalzod]

McKinnon is losing in the court of public opinion. Poor rangas can't win anything

Well we Can't have a people criticise our squeaky clean grub free Australian captain..

 

[Danish]

Mate psychoanalysis should not be used to determine penalties for a tackle... It's too difficult to ascertain whether an action was deliberate or careless. Players run at each other very fast and are very strong - of course it's easy for a tackle like this to go wrong by accident.

The NRL should just impose strict liability for any tackle that goes past the horizontal, deliberate or not.

All momentum in the tackle was over before Mclean made a very clear second effort to lift Mckinnon off the ground and tilt him.

Calling it an accident is stupid. It was a deliberate lift, which is illegal in our game. I'm sure there was no intent to injure, but there was clear and obvious intent to lift and drive a stationary man.

 

[blaza88z]

why are people debating exactly what Smith meant by his words?

the real issue is what a disgrace of Channel 9 are, given 9 is the prime network for viewing Rugby League you'd think that they'd leave the issue alone instead of trying incriminate the Australian captain

Smith did nothing wrong, this is clearly a money grab from McKinnon without regard as to how the public view him

 

[RWB]

What part of making a lifting tackle is not conscious or deliberate? Was Mclean in a coma at the time?

He meant to lift him and he meant to drive him. He just didn't mean to injure him.

Mclean didn't consciously drive him past the horizontal into the ground.

If you know that was his deliberate intention then you're a physchic.

This really is getting ridiculous now... time to show myself out.

 

[Danish]

Smith broke no laws with what he did.

He just showed zero common decency in a situation that you would expect someone held up as a pillar of the code to possess.

 

[gUt]

I don't blame McKinnon for trying to milk every cent out of probably the worst thing that can happen to someone short of dying. It'd be great if the nrl wasn't being used as a media punching bag as usual (although this time indirectly) by it's so called broadcast "partner" but I just can't resent the bloke in the wheelchair for doing everything he can to get paid. I would too.

 

[insert.pause]

Smith broke no laws with what he did.

He just showed zero common decency in a situation that you would expect someone held up as a pillar of the code to possess.

I agree with that, but he should still have been asked for comment, while watching the footage Alex is asking questions like "is he still arguing?" etc, a balanced story would have had comment from Smith about his actions which the journalist could then relay to Alex for his reaction to Smith's explanation, instead we got a void that has been left to be filled by the public controversy, something I'm sure Nine intended. Nine's bs excuse about it being Alex's story and that's why they didn't want to include comment from Smith is pathetic when they advertised it on the basis of explosive comments about the Australian Captain in the media days before.