Thr shoulder charge is the equivalent of bodyline.... Not your regulation bouncer.
And FTR, bodyline was banned due to how dangerous it is.
Sure, I can accept that. Problem is, we haven't seen any shoulder charges this year. The NRL simply doesn't know the difference between a shoulder charge and a tackle using your shoulder.
They talk of player welfare, but ultimately what is going to happen is that the defender's welfare will be more and more compromised because he has a 120kg gorilla running at him and he is somehow forced into trying to stop that without using the natural buffer of his shoulder -- something he has been taught to do since he was in the under 7s.
If you look at when injuries occur, you'll find that just as many occur to the defender as the attacker, in fact, probably more so. That's going to be exaggerated even further as the defender's natural arsenal is denied him.
So what then? Perhaps legislate against the attacker running "too hard"?
The essence of what made the game great is being eroded by the corporate world on a daily basis.
A tackle using the shoulder is not a shoulder charge. I have seen shoulder charges; I can remember Adrian Morley rushing into opponents, sometimes even when they couldn't see him coming, and shoulder charging them. Plenty of others, too. All within the rules at the time. If they want to legislate that out of the game, I can cop that. That's a shoulder charge. But simply standing still and having an opponent run full pelt at you and using your shoulder to help stop him -- that's not a shoulder charge, and only a simpleton refuses to see the difference.
Simpletons, corporate slime, lawyers, they all run the game, now.
How did it come to this?