I DOUBT whether anyone would dispute the fact that the most vulnerable parts of a Rugby League player are the head and the knees, with the ankles perhaps coming in third place.
The RFL has recently taken steps to try to reduce the impact of head injuries with the introduction of the eleven-day stand-down period for players who suffer concussion during a game.
That is absolutely the right way to go.
But what can the RFL do about knee injuries?
Last week, as all the readers of this column will recognise, St Helens had two of their leading players suffer serious knee injuries that may have ended one or both of their careers.
Alex Walmsley suffered a medial ligament injury and was operated upon last week. He faces a likely absence of twelve weeks, which effectively means his season is over.
Agnatius Paasi suffered an even worse injury, with a leading surgeon apparently saying it was one of the worst injuries he had seen. Paasi has two more years left on his St Helens contract after this year, but the injury was so bad – apparently it included ankle ligaments and possibly a broken ankle as well as knee ligaments – that it could force his retirement from the game.
And the problem is that both players were injured in tackles by John Asiata.
It’s not surprising that Leigh coach Adrian Lam and the club’s owner Derek Beaumont have sprung to Asiata’s defence, pointing out his many fine qualities and insisting that he had no malicious intent when he tackled either of those two Saints players.
And I have no doubt that they are right on both counts. Asiata has been a great signing for Leigh and his outstanding quality is represented by the fact that Lam has made him the club captain, which is an honour I’m sure he richly deserved.
Nonetheless, I’m sure that Adrian and Derek would both agree that we want to minimise the number of serious knee injuries that arise in Rugby League in this country.
And it is no criticism of the Leigh skipper to say that we need to investigate whether the sorts of tackles that led to those injuries can be avoided.
The problem for me, as a non-medical person and a non-coach, is that tackles happen in the blink of an eye and it can be difficult to really interpret what happened and how an injury occurred.
As far as I could see, when seeking to tackle Paasi, Asiata came from the side and his shoulder hit Paasi’s leg just above the knee, causing it to shatter.
Asiata was clearly desperate to stop the try that Paasi looked likely to score and he actually placed himself in some potential danger of concussion if he had mistimed it and been hit on the head by Paasi’s knee.
It would be possible to make out a case to the effect that Asiata’s tackle was reckless and was made with no regard for Paasi’s safety.
On the other hand, when you consider how much was at stake, it was obvious that Asiata was prepared to do whatever it took within the laws of the game as they currently stand to prevent St Helens scoring.
It would be quite a challenge for the Rugby League lawmakers to define a dangerous tackle in such a way as to make what Asiata did illegal.
But, for the sake of player safety, I think they have to try to do it.
Tackling side on and putting a shoulder into the knee, when both players are moving at high speed, is almost guaranteed to cause injury.
And now, having posed the question of whether a law can be amended to achieve that objective, I’m very happy to leave it to the relevant authorities to address that issue.
