Refereeing The Magic Round sin bin directive

[franklin2323]

Well. this is the extreme result of players getting headknocks from tackling from the waist down.

And given the edict from the NRL Heirarchy and sin-bins for even incidental/minimal/harmless contact with the head - a blanket rule change they have brought in this season - it is my opinion that we'll see more players trying to tackle around the waist & below... which in effect will result in more head knocks - and Ray Price is sadly an example of what can happen if this plays out as I fear.


Jake Friend has now "medically retired" because of head knocks and concussion concerns. Boyd Cordner isnt far off. Luke Keary has had issues in recent seasons. And if you look at all the incidents of the knocks they got - effectively none were from a tacklers' arm hitting their head. The majority were from tackles THEY were making.

Sure - we need to protect the ball-carrier but FFS not at the expense of the tacklers..

I've praised PVL & the NRL in a number of areas for what they have done last year to save the game and led the way. But in this area I couldn't agree less with what he's lead here. It doesn't make me "right" - and I honestly hope i"m not right. But I know I'm not the only one who thinks what PVL has done here is ridiculous.

I think his intentions are good, but his actions are reckless and careless. He should get 2-4 weeks suspension by his own policy for a Grade 2 hit on the fabric of rugby league, and the damage to its fan base.

This.

Even the new rules will look better as teams improve but the crackdown was poor

 

[Babyface O'reilly]

We dont know the incidence and therefore the risk at the moment. I mean if that was your stance then you would have to remove tackling from the game as it seems its 50-50 attackers and defenders getting concussed.
RL is a high contact sport and comes with inherent risks. its your choice if you decide to play it. Its not Rome where you are forced into the arena. I race in motorsport and know the inherent risks if it goes wrong, that's my choice to take that risk for doing something I love. We all have different risk thresholds. As long as you are informed then its your responsibility.

Race organisers still have a duty of care and safety is a serious priority. They implement rules on safety grounds to circuit owners, manufacturers and drivers’ etiquette such as overtaking or leaving another competitor space for example. The NRL are no different.

 

[Game_Breaker]

We dont know the incidence and therefore the risk at the moment. I mean if that was your stance then you would have to remove tackling from the game as it seems its 50-50 attackers and defenders getting concussed.
RL is a high contact sport and comes with inherent risks. its your choice if you decide to play it. Its not Rome where you are forced into the arena. I race in motorsport and know the inherent risks if it goes wrong, that's my choice to take that risk for doing something I love. We all have different risk thresholds. As long as you are informed then its your responsibility.

Yes
But legally speaking the NRL has to show they’ve taken action that meets their duty of care obligations

Your argument won’t fly in court. This isn’t about opinion, it’s about legal obligations.
Mind you, this isn’t just about the NRL, the clubs have a responsibility too. After all they are the employers

 

[Munted]

It's farkin simple.

Encourage/Reward low/legs tackles. Dont punish the defenders and markers by having the quickest play the ball known to man.
Discourage the need to tackle high. This is harder because people go high to stop momentum and wrap the ball up to prevent an offload, or, the player is so big (Kikau etc) you cant possibly get low and grab those tree trunks.

PVL, you made your bed, now shit in it.

 

[Perth Red]

Race organisers still have a duty of care and safety is a serious priority. They implement rules on safety grounds to circuit owners, manufacturers and drivers’ etiquette such as overtaking or leaving another competitor space for example. The NRL are no different.

yes they do but even with all the rules and regs, and there a lot in motorsport! There is still a significant and inherent risk of injury and as drivers we accept that.
The NRL already has a rule that there should be no head high tackling. it had a penalty system as well. All it has done is increase the penalty system to the point it has significantly effected the quality of the game. If it will reduce head high's, and at what cost to the nature of the game is yet to be seen. It'd be like making us all drive behind the safety car every lap as it reduces the risk of crashes!

 

[Bring back John Fifita]

Sorry but I don’t believe that they “basically told them any head shot is abin”

it was typical refs over policing to save their arse. The Townsend situation was a case in point even though.

the do have form in this regard, don’t they

It was the NRL's directive - and it up to the Referees to enforce it (as best they can). The referees are the pawns in all this.

The NRL has reduced the refs from 2 to 1, "made the game faster", have changed multiple rules and brought "crackdowns" at will. I genuinely feel for the refs - they are in a no-win situation. They are missing things IMO because they've had increased responsibilities under new rules seemingly introduced every week by Vlandys. And two of them got sacked the previous round.

If anyone's boss changed their job description without consultation, added more tasks and rules to enforce, made "directive for crackdowns" and sacked people for missing something like the NRL do.. you'd surely be fed up to the eyeballs.... and the unions would have a field day.

Some calls were indeed incorrect, eg Townsend - but you've got refs under all sorts of pressure "to act" by the NRL. So to me, it's blatanly obvious they are going to over-react or penalise on suspicion. Because if they miss something that could be their job.... sacked. The precedent is there.

The referees didn't start just sin-binning people on their own initiative. It was Vlandys' instruction. And the overwhelming chorus (for once) from disgrunted fans about on-field rulings isn't directed at the referees..

Its this bloke. And I agree with them.

 

[souths_reborn]

Well. this is the extreme result of players getting headknocks from tackling from the waist down.

And given the edict from the NRL Heirarchy and sin-bins for even incidental/minimal/harmless contact with the head - a blanket rule change they have brought in this season - it is my opinion that we'll see more players trying to tackle around the waist & below... which in effect will result in more head knocks - and Ray Price is sadly an example of what can happen if this plays out as I fear.


Jake Friend has now "medically retired" because of head knocks and concussion concerns. Boyd Cordner isnt far off. Luke Keary has had issues in recent seasons. And if you look at all the incidents of the knocks they got - effectively none were from a tacklers' arm hitting their head. The majority were from tackles THEY were making.

Sure - we need to protect the ball-carrier but FFS not at the expense of the tacklers..

I've praised PVL & the NRL in a number of areas for what they have done last year to save the game and led the way. But in this area I couldn't agree less with what he's lead here. It doesn't make me "right" - and I honestly hope i"m not right. But I know I'm not the only one who thinks what PVL has done here is ridiculous.

I think his intentions are good, but his actions are reckless and careless. He should get 2-4 weeks suspension by his own policy for a Grade 2 hit on the fabric of rugby league, and the damage to its fan base.

I agree with you about waist tackling being a thing of the past. In the modern game, it is only ever really used in one or one situations or when a player has made a line break - there is just too much risk associated with it. All the dinosaurs who harp on about it being the way to tackle need to realise that the impact created by the 10m rule and players being bigger and stronger than ever before have increased the risk of head injury.

Ultimately, what we all need to accept is that rugby league is a contact sport and there are going to be incidental head knocks. In terms of accepting the risk, for me it is not different to a boxer or an MMA fighter accepting that he is going to get hit in the head when he enters the ring. With that being said, I do agree that we need to increase diligence on the players part to prevent accidental and reckless contact to the head. I'm yet to hear any counter argument as to why we simply cannot increase suspensions for tackles involving deliberate or reckless contact to the head. Similarly, we could have a rule involving all contact to the head being placed to report to be reviewed by the match review committee. Both of those initiatives would have the same effect in stamping out contact to the head without destroying the fabric of the game.

I would be very wary about praising V'landys. There is no way in the world that he can be credited with 'saving the game'. With that guy, it is all smoke and mirrors; he likes to make out that he is the iron man leader that rugby league needs when in reality he is barely qualified to hold such a position. If you look at most of his initiatives, they are often implemented poorly and based purely on a whim as opposed to sound logic.

 

[souths_reborn]

I don’t think it was the NRL who had the knee jerk reaction it was the idiot referees

It was not the referees. V'landys is head of the NRL Commission and was the chief instigator of this. Jared Maxwell, the referees boss, reports to directly to him and is therefore at the mercy of V'landys instructions. Whether or not, V'landys consulted to the NRL Rules Committee is up for debate but given the way he likes to operate, I sincerely doubt it.

 

[AJB1102]

Joke referring to what our faceless CEO said.

Apparently unless you went to magic round your opinion is worthless, and if you disagree well you're wrong anyway.

Yep. Can't believe the decades and 10s of thousands of dollars I've spent supporting this game, attending club games, grand finals, origins and internationals was all for nothing. It was all about 8 shitty games in round 10, 2021. Just 1 ticket could've made sense of it all.

 

[Perth Red]

The most sensible people in the game have rightly said that the NRL could have taken a tougher stance on head highs by increasing the grading system rather than destroying the game in progress by putting teams out of the contest with 11 or 12 men. If you missed 3 or 5 games for a high tackle then things will change and we haven't killed the product that people pay good money to watch.

Coat hangers have always been send offs but players dropping into tackles, cuffs around the ear from a flat hand when stepped etc should not see teams basically removed out of the games contest.

 

[bileduct]

It's farkin simple.

Encourage/Reward low/legs tackles. Dont punish the defenders and markers by having the quickest play the ball known to man.
Discourage the need to tackle high. This is harder because people go high to stop momentum and wrap the ball up to prevent an offload, or, the player is so big (Kikau etc) you cant possibly get low and grab those tree trunks.

PVL, you made your bed, now shit in it.

Aren't low tackles generally the ones where we are seeing the worst outcomes in terms of concussions, etc. where blokes get their head in the wrong position and get whacked?

We may end up just moving the problem from the ball carrier to the defender.

 

[bileduct]

In theory, I have no issue with more use of the sin bin and send offs for high tackles.

But there has to be some common sense involved and right now it's not a very transparent process. World Rugby at least documented their head contact process (which can be read here -> https://resources.world.rugby/world...f-18e02e7f7e24/Head_Contact_Process_EN_v1.pdf).

What they got right is that they actually look for mitigating circumstances, and even have a Tedesco Rule. If there's head contact and it's the result of "sudden and significant drop in height by the ball carrier", it's play on.

The NRL approach of just immediately penalising all head contact and sending everyone to the bin, even in circumstances where a defender was doing the right thing but was unfortunate enough to be tackling a sack of shit like Tedesco who constantly trips over his own shoelaces, is just f**king rubbish.

 

[Munted]

Aren't low tackles generally the ones where we are seeing the worst outcomes in terms of concussions, etc. where blokes get their head in the wrong position and get whacked?

We may end up just moving the problem from the ball carrier to the defender.

I dont disagree. You see just as many defenders 'getting it wrong' when they go low and cop a knee to the head as you do blokes going in for the big shot and also getting it wrong.

But this is the problem now, how the f**k do you tackle to be effective AND avoid an injury/penalty etc.
700 tackles a game, 98% are fine. I struggle to see why he 2% have to be punished so severely when its accidental.
Im fine with dickheads getting binned for stupid high shots.

 

[Perth Red]

Aren't low tackles generally the ones where we are seeing the worst outcomes in terms of concussions, etc. where blokes get their head in the wrong position and get whacked?

We may end up just moving the problem from the ball carrier to the defender.

It was ironic when they were discussing it on nrl360, pretty every much piece of footage of players getting concussed playing in the background was of defenders getting their heads hit from making a low tackle!

 

[Zoe Palmer]

Aren't low tackles generally the ones where we are seeing the worst outcomes in terms of concussions, etc. where blokes get their head in the wrong position and get whacked?

We may end up just moving the problem from the ball carrier to the defender.

The point is, a low tackle is a choice and getting wrong May or Not hurt you. It’s a calculated risk in playing the game..

getting smashed in the head by an idiot is not a choice

 

[bileduct]

The point is, a low tackle is a choice and getting wrong May or Not hurt you. It’s a calculated risk in playing the game..

getting smashed in the head by an idiot is not a choice

The point is, if you start to reward teams for tackling low and in the process more people end up with what appears to be on average even more severe concussions and on a more regular basis, how exactly have you solved the problem of head injuries?

 

[Bring back John Fifita]

It was ironic when they were discussing it on nrl360, pretty every much piece of footage of players getting concussed playing in the background was of defenders getting their heads hit from making a low tackle!

They were happy to replay the send-offs ad nauseum ... to sensationalise the issue. Not many people had an issue with the send offs.. it’s the sin-bins..

The montage of Boyd Cordners (shown previously) hits are awful and none of them are high shots. Same with Jake Friend - unless you consider a high shot from the ball carrier - which Nathan Brown did in SOO last year, but curiously that was swept under the carpet ..

 

[blaza88z]

Players will be looking to get hit in the head this weekend, I am sure of it.

They back themselves into tackles and then grab their neck claiming to be the victim of a crusher tackle, what's the difference?

 

[Evil Emperor Zurg]

It's farkin simple.

Encourage/Reward low/legs tackles. Dont punish the defenders and markers by having the quickest play the ball known to man.
Discourage the need to tackle high.

This worked out well for McGuire and Sims.

 

[Bring back John Fifita]

This worked out well for McGuire and Sims.

I’m absolutely dumbfounded by these, the extreme penalty for McGuire, and that Sims was charged at all.