The Slater shoulder charge?
There were four or five defences mounted against the obvious, most of them pushed hard by someone who will remain nameless – let’s just call him “Phil Gould".
1.
“We didn't need a shoulder charge rule in the first place.” Arrant nonsense. The game has a legally and morally obligated duty of care. Once the dangers of repeated concussions were understood, the NRL simply had to make itself safer, which includes banning the tackle with the most concussive force in the game.
2.
He only hit him side-on, and not front-on, so it wasn’t that bad. In Gould’s words: “The shoulder charge rule was never to outlaw that tackle". Seriously? The rule should come with angle caveats? That beyond a certain angle it’s ok? Completely unworkable. You either ban the tackle or you don’t. It had to be banned, and it was.
3.
There was a hand in there somewhere, making first contact. If I head-butt you in the nose, but my hand brushes your chin beforehand, did I still head-butt you in the nose? Does it make any actual difference to the kind of attack it was?
Illustration: John Shakespeare
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4.
–He’s a legend, playing his last match, so give him a free pass. In fact, in Gould’s direct words, “No game rubs its champions out more than the NRL. It makes me sick. We think it’s about everything but the players. The players are the ones who will bring people through the gate and we’ve got to let them play.” Please. All legal systems with integrity must work on the principle that “justice is blind". There can be no peeking from beneath the horse-hair to see if the accused is famous or not. And it was through “thinking about the players” that we saw the shoulder charge banned in the first place.
One way or another, Slater gets to play. Like most of those who follow league, I can see the decision for what it is: an obvious nonsense. If that did not constitute a shoulder charge, what the hell does it take?
Against all of the above, and as contradictory as it might sound, I acknowledge that it would have been against nature for a player such as him to finish his career rubbed out for the grand final.
The lawyer in me says “ban him for a match” while the fan in me says “great to see him play". But the job of those on the judiciary is to ignore the fan in them, and simply apply the rules.
https://www.smh.com.au/sport/slater...nd-and-just-plain-stupid-20180928-p506nm.html
I'm no a Fitzy fan, but he nails it in this article.
