Sydney Roosters coach Trent Robinson has again showed why he is fast emerging as one of the best thinkers in the NRL by suggesting a reduction in the number of interchanges to eight as a solution to the wrestling tactics that are again ruining games and endangering players' safety.
NRL head of football Todd Greenberg sparked debate about wrestling when he told Fairfax Media the game's governing body was powerless to eradicate it, and retiring props Jason King and Luke Bailey said, in radio interviews, that of all the changes to the game during their careers, wrestling was the one they disliked most.
"I will miss some things but I definitely won't miss those wrestling sessions that have unfortunately crept into the game," Manly prop King said on 2SM.
Asked about his thoughts on the game at the moment, Titans prop Bailey said on Triple M: "The game is looking fantastic as long as we can piss off the wrestle".
Bailey speaks for most in the game but the fact that 15 players have been charged with crusher and chicken-wing tackles in the past five rounds suggests the NRL match review committee is either doing its best to discourage such tactics, or they are now endemic in the game, or both.
Two of the most experienced voices in the NRL, Wayne Bennett and Phil Gould, have challenged Greenberg and the code's administrators to do more to rid the game of the wrestling scourge that first emerged in 2003 when then Canberra coach Mathew Elliott accused Melbourne Storm of introducing the grapple tackle.
"I don't believe it is too far gone," Bennett said after his last game in charge of Newcastle on Sunday. "It will take someone with a lot of courage to back their decisions and stay with it. That's what it will take; it will take leadership."
Gould, the Penrith general manager and a Fairfax columnist, has called for a summit on the issue at the end of the season. "I think that there are a number of aspects of defence that have been in the game over the last eight or 10 years that have really come out of the one club, and people that have worked at that club," Gould said in last week's Gus and Webby Show.
"It has got to the stage where other clubs have tried to keep up. Now they realise it is bad for the game and have probably steered away from it. It needs to be stamped out. There is no good saying you can't stamp it out. You can stamp it out and they should," he said.
"Everything comes down to what is not in the spirit of the game and I really think there needs to be a summit on this. I think the coaches need to be called in and dragged over the coals for it, and I think there needs to be stipulations over the type of training and the type of methods that teams use.
"It is in the game's best interests; it is in player welfare's best interests and it is not right. It is not in the spirit of the game," Gould said.
Enter Robinson who, unlike many of his coaching counterparts, is unafraid of expressing his opinions on the game, even when they are not necessarily in the Roosters' best interest.
Before last Thursday night's clash with arch rivals South Sydney, Robinson declared it was a "bigger than a normal round game" for his team. Afterwards he revealed the Roosters had prepared for the game in the belief they would be playing the Rabbitohs again in the opening weekend of the finals.
Robinson then displayed brutal honestly when he admitted in a radio interview on Sunday that lock Aidan Guerra had gone too far when he committed a chicken-wing tackle on Rabbitohs back-rower Kyle Turner and said he would have to pay the price for his actions by accepting a one-match suspension.
Asked what could be done to remove wrestling from the game, Robinson proposed a reduction in the number of interchanges from 10 to eight to increase the fatigue levels of defenders. He suggested it would be discussed during the off-season by the NRL rules committee, of which he is a member.
"We can try and get rid of it," he said. "I think we do it through interchanges. I think we do it by reducing the amount of rest time between scrums ... that is when the smaller guys will come back in front of the props and start playing flat and fast, and start getting their hands on the ball more.
"We will see a bit more fatigue in the play if we reduce the interchange to eight. There are a few things there which will increase the speed of the ruck. I don't think it is far away from a discussion at the [rules] committee and the coaches' meetings."
