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Dunbar last won the day on April 16
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- Currently Viewing Topic: Disciplinary at it again.
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It does matter because in the RFL disciplinary compliance document, the underlying principles state: - Rugby League is a hard, fast, contact sport played at professional level by athletic players. - In a sport with high speed collisions there will always be injuries and players take part with this knowledge. - The disciplinary system is not intended to sanitise the sport, however, there is no place in the game for players who jeopardise the safety of others by intentional, dangerous or malicious acts. - The disciplinary system must support and protect Match Officials. They are explicitly stating that a sport like Rugby League will always have unfortunate injuries and the panel are tasked with deciding if an incident that led to an injury was a foul and whether it was intentional, dangerous or malicious. You cannot take intentional out of the equation when one of the underlying principles of the panel is to decide (in part) if an action was intentional. The opposite of intentional is accidental. I think from the three here - intentional, dangerous or malicious - dangerous is the only category that matters and if the panel come down on the side that it was dangerous (as they seem to have done) then I am happy to accept that decision but I remain convinced it was accidental.
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What is interesting in this case is that Namo has been charged under dangerous contact law and the charge states: Dangerous Contact - Defender uses any part of their body forcefully to twist, bend or otherwise apply pressure to the limb or limbs of an opposing player in a way that involves an unacceptable risk of injury to that player. But the preceding charge type to this one is: Dangerous contact: A defending player, in effecting a tackle, makes dangerous contact (either direct or indirect), or uses a technique which is likely to make dangerous contact (either direct or indirect), with the supporting leg or legs of an attacking player who is being held in the tackle by a defender(s), and who is deemed to be in a vulnerable position, in a way that involves an unacceptable risk of injury to that player The latter of these two charges is the cannonball tackle. But because shoulder contact was above the thigh the cannonball law doesn't apply. But I would argue that the part "in effecting a tackle, makes dangerous contact (either direct or indirect), or uses a technique which is likely to make dangerous contact (either direct or indirect), with the supporting leg or legs of an attacking player" is probably the part that does apply here. This is much closer to what happened than the twisting, bending or application of pressure as that is almost impossible to do with a knee while effecting a tackle with your shoulder.
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Can you quote and link that wording here please as I would like to see it.
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You cannot tell someone to stop fixating on purposefully and then use the phrase 'attacked the ankle joint'. Attacked is a very different meaning to recklessly or carelessly making contact - and does imply intent. Is it your opinion that he deliberately attacked the ankle while making that tackle?
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Yes, I will read the minutes and that may shed some light on their thinking. But your first line does worry me. The tackler got the tackle execution wrong and injured a player... but didn't explicitily break any of the laws of the game making that tackle other than "uses any part of their body forcefully to twist, bend or otherwise apply pressure to the limb or limbs of an opposing player in a way that involves an unacceptable risk of injury to that player." It wasn't a cannonball and there was no twisting action as you cannot twist a players ankle with your knee - so it was a tackle that applied force to a part of the players body and caused an injury. Which tackle that causes an injury doesn't apply force from a part of a tacklers body to cause an injury? I go back to first principles here. Put the injury to one side - what law was broken when this tackle was made?
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I do see that. The body shape into the tackle is the important part here. Did his body shape and angle cause unnecessary contact and was it reckless. I am going to take a look at the live round of matches this week to see if this body shape and angle is very uncommon. For me, the equation is simple. Do I think it was a deliberate attempt to target the ankle and cause pressure? No So, was it reckless. This depends on whether the technique used was reckless as a knee hitting an ankle cannot on its own be described as reckless. If other tackles have the same body shape and angle, and they go unpenalised and unrecognised then that adds to the discussion. But I don't know that yet.
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The Southern Conference starts this week, I will get to the first round of games and will be interested to see any changes.
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Yes, you could certainly make an argument that he was reckless and applied pressure - that is clearly where the panel has gone with this one. Would they have decided the same if Isa had got up and played the ball. Who knows. As for the next injury sustained by a player. Let's have a chat then if pressure had been applied by the tackler to cause that injury and whether they should be banned. The panel may have got this right by the letter of the law, but I don't like it. I think it was an accident and we don't always have to find someone to blame for an accident.
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I understand that interpretation. But are we getting to a point where all tackles that result in injuries could be interpreted as unessesary pressure. As for applying pressure with the shoulder (targeting the hip) and knee (targeting the ankle) at the same time. I cannot see how that is an action that can be described an anything other than accidental.
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But surely that is because contact with a players head is explicitly stated as against the laws of the game. It is not against the laws for a player to make contact with an oppositions ankle with his knee and so the question comes down to whether he used his body to twist or bend the ankle or apply unnecessary pressure as the laws state. I would say no. Before we ban a player, I would want to know what foul he committed. I cannot see a foul here, I just see an unfortunate accident.
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I am fully on board with the duty of care. But equally, I think we also need to accept that in a collision sport accidents are bound to happen and I cannot think that a player hitting a hip/thigh with a shoulder will simultaneously contact an ankle with his knee in anything other than an accident that occurs once in a thousand tackles (or maybe more). We cannot legislate to eliminate accidents and I personally believe that it is unfair to do this here and the ban is because a player suffered an unfortunate injury.
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I don't think it comes under that category, I believe it is 15.1(i) other contrary behaviour including dangerous contact.
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Of course, that is the only way this can work. The laws/charge say that the twist, bend or pressure is the risk to cause injury. The length of any ban may hinge on injury caused but not the action of committing the foul itself. A tackle cannot be legal if it doesn't cause injury and illegal if it causes injury, there has to be an action that is illegal by the tackler for it to be a foul - injury or not.
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Surely if the tackle was a foul then it was a foul whether ISA got hurt or not. Or was it only foul because he got hurt in your view?