A dog act by the Melbourne Storm

[LeeF]

4 hours ago, Lowdesert said:

We are talking feigning injury.  It is rife in Aus and has been in our game too for many, many years, although not so commonplace.

Foolish to think it will ever be eradicated but for some of these, Refs should be seeing through the majority.

Are you going to defend them when, not if, they get an injury call wrong? This is one decision the match officials cannot and should never be asked to make. 

If it turns out that the qualified medical personnel of teams are basically cheating then it is up to the Governing Body to deal with them and harshly deal with them. Large fines and bans for the people involved should be the norm

[Hate the rec]

6 hours ago, Chronicler of Chiswick said:

The idea that this is something new is plain silly. I remember when we (Fulham) played Carlisle at Brunton Park in 1985 and were a point down right at the end of the game, at which a Fulham player ran between two Carlisle defenders, did a dying swan act and we won by a point. If his grin had been any broader in the bar afterwards the top of his head would have fallen off! (Oh, and for the curious the guilty party was Harold Henney, older members of this forum might remember him).

Remember Harold getting his photo taken with my sister in his Workington days , she was smitten by him,  mind he was a handsome chap .

[DC77]

15 hours ago, DavidM said:

Football is full of cheating , I pity their officials . However bad our sport is it’s not worse . Maybe when guys collapse to the floor when someone brushes a hand on their face in one of those handbags at dawn push n shove episodes we get now 

You are comparing two different things.

Football is my main sport, and the reason it’s full of diving is because you can get rewarded for it (with the instant video assistant referee now in force this has declined thankfully). You can’t get rewarded for diving in rugby (both codes) so it’s not done. If it was they would. There are other forms of cheating in rugby which players use to garner an advantage,  such as late hits to take out a player, wrestling/holding on to a player to prevent him from releasing the ball quickly (probably my biggest gripe about the game). The latter the officials do nothing about. There’s nothing worse than seeing a player make a line break, get tackled, then try to get up quickly to release the ball to catch out the disorganised defence, only to be held sufficiently for the defence to regroup. When rugby (both codes) was at its purest it was much more free flowing, far less cheating/spoiling.

[Oldbear]

Melbourne are a conundrum. I love their expansion story and with ball in hand they can be great (like the second half of the Parra game), but they can be disliked in the same way that teams like New England Patriots or Boston Bruins are, they have a very grubby underbelly and bend the rules to the extreme (perhaps similar to Don Revies Leeds United, now I’m showing my age!)

[RP London]

watching it as a melbourne fan (had to pick a side in aus and early 2000s picked melbourne for complicated reasons) i didnt understand why it was stopped in the first place.. he was 50 yards away and behind the play, the trainer and doctor and anyone else could come on to the pitch to look after him so surely they can play on.. If he was in the defensive line or quite close fair enough but I dont understand the rule that trainers dictate anywhere on the pitch.. surely the ref just goes "ok i'm aware.. if the play breaks down and melbourne start to attack in his direction i'll pause it then".. 

I'm not defending the Melbourne trainer at all.. if the rule is "as soon as he puts his hand up then play stops" then he should be banned/fined but a bit like with the harlequins blood gate fiasco years ago, if the call is being made from upstairs to call a halt in play for cramp then Bellamy should get a ban/fine too.. but i'd also look at the rule as it seems daft.. even for a serious injury its not like we have doctors playing that can go and help if its a serious injury.. they can play on as long as it isnt interfering surely for at least a play, at which point you know quite how serious it is ie loads of people rushing onto the pitch, or you see the trainer stretching his calf

[Dunbar]

In these circumstances the ref's should bear no blame and they certainly should not be made to decide the seriousness of the injury situation from 50 yards away.

If we remember back to the Nene MadDonald incident, the ref was criticised for not stopping play when the trainer was looking after him down pitch. In that case he had a badly broken leg and required urgent attention.

Now, the ref's defer to the onfield medical staff and immediately stop the game if they signal. Imagine the furore if they ignored a call to halt play and a player was seriously injured. Alongside managing a continuing game of Rugby League, they cannot diagnose a medical problem from 50 yards.

Players, coaches and physios who abuse this should be ashamed of themselves and duly punished. 

[Dave T]

15 hours ago, Lowdesert said:

We are talking feigning injury.  It is rife in Aus and has been in our game too for many, many years, although not so commonplace.

Foolish to think it will ever be eradicated but for some of these, Refs should be seeing through the majority.

Not really, it is wrong to class this the same as somebody getting up slow at the PTB or staying down injured to get a penalty. 

This is more in the RU fake blood category. 

[Dave T]

15 hours ago, Moove said:

I suppose there's not a great deal you can do on the field in response to a trainer/physio pulling a stunt like this one. The referee is stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Fine the physio and the club, increase the fines for subsequent offences. Maybe they should accumulate penalty points so serial offenders eventually get banned from the sport. Similar for serial offending clubs too with competition points eventually being docked.

As for feigning/exaggerating injury, every team does that and you'd be one-eyed in the extreme to think your club doesn't. This incident wasn't really feigning injury though, more a physio who decided to involve himself in the outcome of a game by getting the game stopped inappropriately. That's probably more concerning than players doing it tbh as their job is solely about player welfare.

Spot on. This isn't a faking injury point, this is a trainer ignoring player welfare because all they are bothered about is winning a game. 

[RP London]

16 minutes ago, Dunbar said:

In these circumstances the ref's should bear no blame and they certainly should not be made to decide the seriousness of the injury situation from 50 yards away.

If we remember back to the Nene MadDonald incident, the ref was criticised for not stopping play when the trainer was looking after him down pitch. In that case he had a badly broken leg and required urgent attention.

Now, the ref's defer to the onfield medical staff and immediately stop the game if they signal. Imagine the furore if they ignored a call to halt play and a player was seriously injured. Alongside managing a continuing game of Rugby League, they cannot diagnose a medical problem from 50 yards.

Players, coaches and physios who abuse this should be ashamed of themselves and duly punished. 

I'm not blaming the ref i'm questioning the advice given to him about the player 50 yards away... I havent seen the incident with Nene MacDonald but with him being 50 yards away did his treatment differ while play carried on as none of the players or ref can actually help. did play go anywhere near him during this period? thats my issue.. they could have given 1-2 plays to the eels on the weekend giving a bit more time for a proper assessment as soon as play looked "stale" he could blow, as soon as the ball turns over he could blow but the eels had a roll on and the player was way off in backfield. 

I just dont quite understand how if they player is no where near play why does the play have to stop, it is different at amateur level where the ref may well be the best person to have a look and one of the players may well be a medic.

I agree whoever abused the rule should be punished, but what i am saying is the rule should be looked at.

[Davo5]

17 hours ago, Clogiron said:

Since reading the book "Storm Clouds" about their salary cap exploits with Murdock's News Co what little respect I had for their sporting achievements disappeared completely. They are a thoroughly nasty piece of work that got off lightly.

Got off lightly,what parallel universe do you exist in ?

[RP London]

8 minutes ago, Dave T said:

Spot on. This isn't a faking injury point, this is a trainer ignoring player welfare because all they are bothered about is winning a game. 

This is where the problem comes though isnt it?

Its not ignoring player welfare to call a halt to the game to look after the player.. ignoring player welfare would be to let it continue.. how do you prove that the trainer didnt do the exact right thing with the information at hand.. the player says something that makes the trainer think "oh no something major could be wrong" then after a bit longer consulting he ends up with "thats ruddy cramp you prat"! it also could simply be the trainer cheating.. 

Its a fine balancing act and whenever that happens there will be bending of the rules, but perhaps those rules could be tweaked around so player welfare isnt impacted but the game isnt immediately stopped unless the player is interfering in the play or its an obvious head injury.

[Davo5]

Players from an early age are encouraged to stay down when goal line dropouts are forced or to prevent team’s getting a roll on following a penalty,it’s frustrating but every team at every level of the game does it.

[Dave T]

24 minutes ago, RP London said:

This is where the problem comes though isnt it?

Its not ignoring player welfare to call a halt to the game to look after the player.. ignoring player welfare would be to let it continue.. how do you prove that the trainer didnt do the exact right thing with the information at hand.. the player says something that makes the trainer think "oh no something major could be wrong" then after a bit longer consulting he ends up with "thats ruddy cramp you prat"! it also could simply be the trainer cheating.. 

Its a fine balancing act and whenever that happens there will be bending of the rules, but perhaps those rules could be tweaked around so player welfare isnt impacted but the game isnt immediately stopped unless the player is interfering in the play or its an obvious head injury.

We know he didn't do the right thing because he hadn't even been to the player. We also know that he was 60m behind play, so there was no need for the trainer to make his first action waving to the ref to stop the game. If he was worried about player welfare, he would have been bothered about the actual player, gone to him, assessed him, got him comfortable, instead he was bothered about a game of Rugby 60m away.

 

 

[Dave T]

19 minutes ago, Davo5 said:

Players from an early age are encouraged to stay down when goal line dropouts are forced or to prevent team’s getting a roll on following a penalty,it’s frustrating but every team at every level of the game does it.

This does differ from time-wasting though. At least with time wasting there is a natural break in play anyway and there is a natural turnaround time for a drop out or similar. 

This was a game-affecting halting of play when Eels were in an attacking position versus 12 men.

Now there may be an argument that we just stop the game at all times for injuries to take care of the player welfare point, but I think that would cause more problems than it solved.

For me, there was  slightly bigger issue, when I watched the video of this incident, I struggled to follow who I was meant to be watching at first, as there were 3 non-playing staff on the field for Melbourne at that time (IIRC) - I had hoped after the farcial incident in last year's Grand Final they'd have moved away from this, but clearly not. Are there many other sports that allow coaches and staff on field once players grow older than 11?

[RP London]

20 minutes ago, Dave T said:

We know he didn't do the right thing because he hadn't even been to the player. We also know that he was 60m behind play, so there was no need for the trainer to make his first action waving to the ref to stop the game. If he was worried about player welfare, he would have been bothered about the actual player, gone to him, assessed him, got him comfortable, instead he was bothered about a game of Rugby 60m away.

 

 

I'm not disagreeing.. I am, however, playing a bit of a devils advocate because this is not going to be the last of these, its also not the first..

if he has seen the player go down clutching his leg and people are making reference to the Nene MacDonald incident.. then perhaps the trainer has seen something he doesnt like, in his professional opinion, and with the MacDonald incident in mind wants to get the refs attention as soon as possible.. so while he is running on he waves because there is nothing else he can be doing while getting to the player.. but he has made a mistake and its just cramp but in him striving for "player welfare" he has made an error. 

For me the key is that he is 60m away from play.. is there any real reason to stop play at this point no matter what the actual injury is? there is no more danger to the player, there is no extra care he can be given by 26 people stopping running around 60m away etc.. IMHO we are too quick to stop play with this and it is because of that that it is open to abuse. If we didnt stop play immediately unless the player is in the line or close to the play (ie the play could very quickly swing towards where they are and put them and the medical staff looking after him in danger) then i dont think you would get this. If mellbourne had had the ball and had a roll on with him down with an actual broken leg (and had the choice) would they have played on? yes probably.. so why is it dangerous at one point and not at the other

[Dunbar]

49 minutes ago, RP London said:

I'm not blaming the ref i'm questioning the advice given to him about the player 50 yards away... I havent seen the incident with Nene MacDonald but with him being 50 yards away did his treatment differ while play carried on as none of the players or ref can actually help. did play go anywhere near him during this period? thats my issue.. they could have given 1-2 plays to the eels on the weekend giving a bit more time for a proper assessment as soon as play looked "stale" he could blow, as soon as the ball turns over he could blow but the eels had a roll on and the player was way off in backfield. 

I just dont quite understand how if they player is no where near play why does the play have to stop, it is different at amateur level where the ref may well be the best person to have a look and one of the players may well be a medic.

I agree whoever abused the rule should be punished, but what i am saying is the rule should be looked at.

(My response was not a direct reply to yourself, more of a general update, so I wasn't taking up an argumentative position).

Here is the fallout from the MacDonald incident.

https://www.nrl.com/news/2019/04/15/referees-relegated-over-play-on-call-after-nene-macdonald-injury/

Play continued for a minute with MacDonald needing urgent care (oxygen/mobile stretcher etc).

This is an extreme example and actually that minute probably didn't make a lot of difference in the grand scheme of things - apart from the pain that MacDonald was in.  But the type of fallout from it means that refs are never going to ignore the call of a medical professional.  And in a world where sports like Rugby League are under the microscope for player welfare we need to be seen to be doing as much as possible.

Unfortunately, as with all initiatives such as this, they are open to abuse.

[Dunbar]

Just now, RP London said:

there is no extra care he can be given by 26 people stopping running around 60m away etc

you cannot bring on medical equipment like oxygen and mobile stretchers while play is continuing, no matter how far away it is.  That would be chaotic.

[Chronicler of Chiswick]

17 hours ago, Dave T said:

Have you seen the incident, because that isn't what we are talking about at all?

Yes it is - it's about cheating.

[DavidM]

A broken leg is an extreme example , but it isn’t indicative of what we see over and over . Even when it’s apparent the injury is minor referees stand there waiting for treatment to finish rather than saying ‘ hang on , get off or out the back and lets go ‘ . It’s plainly ridiculous what we’re stopping and hanging around for . The unnecessary stoppages are nine tenths of the frustration . Even out of the way of play a player can get treatment and assessed without the play stopping much of the time . It’s a tactic in the main to stop the play not to be disadvantaged , lets be honest , probably from a coaching directive . You don’t need to stop play for a cut , a strapping , for a bloke to walk off the field with a physio or lots of other things . Or the mystery injury or HIA when you’re under the cosh . And funny these are usually when you’re defending . HIA’s are another issue , the plethora of these a game and on field assessments 

[RP London]

1 hour ago, Dunbar said:

you cannot bring on medical equipment like oxygen and mobile stretchers while play is continuing, no matter how far away it is.  That would be chaotic.

no i understand that but that is where you can then stop it because it is quite obvious that there is an issue that needs to be dealt with.. but the situation is not immediate, the stretcher/oxygen is not coming on immediately and those players are still 60m away from the incident. but the knee jerk to 1 incident being dealt with incorrectly causes a player with cramp to have the game stopped for him.. 

I;ve been trying to look for the video of it to see how similar it is to the incident with melbourne in terms of how far off it was etc but i cannot find anything

[RP London]

52 minutes ago, Dunbar said:

(My response was not a direct reply to yourself, more of a general update, so I wasn't taking up an argumentative position).

Here is the fallout from the MacDonald incident.

https://www.nrl.com/news/2019/04/15/referees-relegated-over-play-on-call-after-nene-macdonald-injury/

Play continued for a minute with MacDonald needing urgent care (oxygen/mobile stretcher etc).

This is an extreme example and actually that minute probably didn't make a lot of difference in the grand scheme of things - apart from the pain that MacDonald was in.  But the type of fallout from it means that refs are never going to ignore the call of a medical professional.  And in a world where sports like Rugby League are under the microscope for player welfare we need to be seen to be doing as much as possible.

Unfortunately, as with all initiatives such as this, they are open to abuse.

Totally agree and this is my issue.. 

taking the melbourne situation, i havent actually seen the Macdonald one so dont know how far away he was etc, the assessment can be done away from the game.. then note he has cramp and get on with it.. with MacDonald (if he was a similar distance away) they can see quite how bad it is and then the call is made, which the ref obviously simply ignored/didnt see which is a different issue entirely IMHO

I totally get you shouldnt bring stretchers on etc while play is going on, at that point its obvious there is a major issue, equally sod it get them on the ref or frankly the players will quickly stop.. but that was a reffing issue.. 

As i say i think the whole melbourne situation was wrong and if i was an eels fan i'd be p"ssed off but i feel its a symptom of them being too scared to make a call, where as the macdonald one should have flagged up that there must be a better way for them to communicate to the ref/touch judge, when there is a big problem rather than refs stopping for everything just becuase.. which is where i think melbourne "exploited" the rule.. if that makes sense.

[Rupert Prince]

2 hours ago, Dunbar said:

In these circumstances the ref's should bear no blame and they certainly should not be made to decide the seriousness of the injury situation from 50 yards away.

If we remember back to the Nene MadDonald incident, the ref was criticised for not stopping play when the trainer was looking after him down pitch. In that case he had a badly broken leg and required urgent attention.

Now, the ref's defer to the onfield medical staff and immediately stop the game if they signal. Imagine the furore if they ignored a call to halt play and a player was seriously injured. Alongside managing a continuing game of Rugby League, they cannot diagnose a medical problem from 50 yards.

Players, coaches and physios who abuse this should be ashamed of themselves and duly punished. 

Two things, well three... the first thing is that, isn't the ref allowed to have a brain, a bit of nous?

2nd. Is the trainer not allowed to come on and then call assistance?   If there is no obstruction then play can continue, why not?   If there is or becomes an obstruction then play stops.

3rd.  If the player makes a miraculous recovery, well the ref himself can say, "oh no you really are not fit i think, go off untill i think you are".  Then after 10 mins, whilst the poor player massages his sore knee, then he can decide he is fit.  And/or the ref can determine that the player is not fit to continue for the whole game, and a sub, if available, can come on. 

In short, why should the ref be made a patsy?  From what i can see the trainer is always on, never seem to leave.  They are onto a supposed injured player before you can say Jack Robinson (or Maurice Lindsey for that matter!). Trainer seems to be the 14th man and is hard wired to the coach in the stands.

[Rupert Prince]

PS

Is there no honour amongst thieves?

If a player is seriously injured i would expect an opponent, presumably close enough to be involved, would be the first to call a halt.

As a somewhat different game i know but taking snooker, or may be golf, a player knows he has made a foul and puts his hand up.  No one else might not see it.  Its called "honour".  

These says as an example the joke decisions in the ruck have gone beyond gamesmanship. 

[Davo5]

FWIW I think if the game is stopped for an injury,the “injured” player should be taken from the field of play after the required attention,the game should be restarted with the “injured” player unable to rejoin until the next stoppage of play.

[Dunbar]

I fully agree with everyone's frustration in the stoppages in play for minor injuries (or in the case of cramp, no injury) and I find the players standing around for minutes at a time while a player gets his head strapped infuriating.

But I do think we have to look at the big picture here.  There is immense pressure on contact sports to show that they take  player welfare seriously.  And this isn't really about the professionals, it is about the perception of the sport as parents consider taking their 6, 7 & 8 year old's to their first rugby game... you may think this is over the top but the televised sport is the image of the game overall and if a bit of waiting around is the price we have to pay for showcasing player welfare then let's suck it up.