magpie4ever
First Grade
- Messages
- 9,992
How would you know what the legal consquences of the lad's passing were or are (compensation or legal proceedings). You truly are slightly below a merkin.
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Likewise, with the legal side of this debate somewhat addressed, we'll get to see just how big an issue this thing really is bearing in mind that shoulder charges have been legal for decades with, what I can see, appears to be minimal negative long-term effects on past NRL players. That side of this debate doesn't seem to be getting much of an airing. What's the news out of the ex-player camps, guys going back 10 - 20+ years - wonder how they're holding up especially in regards to brain function. Surely their opinions should hold some sway, they certainly would for me anyway.
I don't know. I found out second hand. Spear tackles weren't that common in younger grade footie back in the early eighties.
Not always but sometimes popular opinion should be ignored. That's why we have representative parliaments rather than direct democracy. That's why we have presidents and prime ministers instead of putting everything to a vote. And that's why we have a commission instead of just ringing up fans around the country and asking them to vote for what they want.
That makes sense as to why there's largely silence from ex-players.
The prevalence of head high tackling back in the 80's and 90's especially was a huge blight on the game. Especially disliked the Des Hasler 'jump' style of tackle and short guys like Alan Cann continually attacking the head of opponents. It's great that this aspect of the game has been cleaned up a lot in recent years primarily because they were once common place. Shoulder charges, especially shoulder charges gone wrong are not any were as near prevalent. More to the point, there's other ways of addressing this tackle than simply banning it namely limiting it to one on one confrontation, and if practical, a front-on only stoush at that. Stiffer penalities of course is another but given its prevalence, and more importantly the (positive) leverage this game derives from this tackle, until such time that this tackle really does impact on player welfare (and not just borrowing from evidence derived from another sport) then it shoud have stayed legal.Head highs, stiff arms, all ins and squirrel grips were more the go. It was so innocent
I want my game to be No 1 in Australasia and who knows where else thereafter. It should have been No 1 years ago but self-interest (we're too tribal) forever seems to hold us back. No 1 - that's where I'm coming from. What I want has just become so much harder. We've neutered our biggest selling point, our most common highlight. Side-steps, flick passes, intelligent passes, off-loads, fancy kicks and steam-rolling runs, they're all well and good, but they don't grab peoples attention like a big hit. And sure we'll still get the odd legal big hit, much like Union are able to conjure up from time to time, but its doubtful that media will be playing a weekly montage of big attention grabbing hits from now on. And that's a huge setback for advancing this sport towards my end goal.
As argued earlier regarding agendas, of which this is, we can set an agenda to fit whatever outcome we choose. We can find 1600 medico's that'll attest to the likelihood of long-term injury resulting from shoulder charges is no more likely than that for many other aspects of the tackle process. What do we do then! This change has been rail-roaded through without little critical analysis and that's the big scary thing about all this as far as I'm concerned. Just how bright (or invested in this game) are our 'powers that be'.
