Tooooks
Bench
- Messages
- 3,242
Kent reckons Marata should have been charged and suspended for breaking Brandon Smiths jaw...
——————————
The worry of involving only ex-players, and not somebody with a deeper understanding of the rules, revealed itself again this week when Parramatta’s Marata Niukore escaped suspension for breaking Brandon Smith’s jaw.
Match review co-ordinator Michael Robertson said the committee judged it a “front on, ball-and-all tackle” and that the injuries sustained were irrelevant to the lack of charge.
“We can elevate a charge based on injuries but we can’t charge on injuries itself,” he said, which is fair enough.
But it overlooked the most crucial aspect of the tackle.
It broke Smith’s jaw.
Too often the players err on the side of the players, at the omission of the rules.
If fracturing a jaw when the tackler’s shoulder comes into contact with the face of the ballrunner is not the definition of a “careless” high tackle, it is hard to imagine what it is.
The committee went through their checklist; no swinging arm, he wasn’t launching the shoulder, and the first point of contact, they believed, was simultaneous between shoulder and chest.
The ex-players applied all the logic of ex-players but missed the most vital part: Niukore’s shoulder came into contact with Smith’s face.
His head recoiled on impact and his jaw was broken and needed repair to the point Smith is now having dinner through a straw.
The damage speaks for itself.
It should not matter, in the case of a careless charge, whether contact was simultaneous.
https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/s...s/news-story/7a49e82d723a9a98ec87dea7b1c97adb
He’s not wrong. Imagine if Marata’s jaw was broken when he was shoulder charged in the face. We’d all be livid.