Tackle height law change confirmed

[Midlands hobo]

In the NFL there is a massive push on helmet design. I believe no helmet from pre COVID is still legal due to advances. However the game itself is mutated by the early adoption of helmets. For example tackling techniques call for head on the ball as the helmet protection from knees and cuts allowed it.

Any adaptors to RL or any other ball sport will inevitably lead to changes in coaching and playing that will have unforeseen outcomes

[Archie Gordon]

Have to agree with others. How did this video get signed off? The examples of illegal tackles mostly look fine.

This looks like an awful halfway house compromise where the RFL says armpit but means sternum and players, coaches and refs - all volunteers, some untrained - try to make sense of things in the community game whilst speccies scream and shout on the sideline.

[EggFace]

6 minutes ago, iffleyox said:

It’s the same in RU - the pro game will almost inevitably follow. Like boiling a frog. 
 

it will become very, very difficult to hold the professional game apart from this for more than a couple of years.

But will the NRL follow ?

[Odsal Outlaw]

This is such a shame to see the direction the sport is heading in. Safety is important, but let’s also recognise that we sign up to play a sport with a level of risk. If someone gets hit on the head then send the offender off, but don’t start sanitising the game. 

I remember when the shoulder charge was banned - also a poor decision.

I wonder if boxing will force punches only below the armpit?

[iffleyox]

3 minutes ago, EggFace said:

But will the NRL follow ?

Honestly, if everyone else does it (both codes) then they’ll eventually have to. Otherwise they’ll end up sued to oblivion by anyone that ever gets dementia or various other neurological problems ever. 
 

barrister: ‘what makes you at the NRL different?’

won’t happen next week, but I reckon in the next 5 years max this will be the law/rule in professional and amateur R/rugby.

Merry Christmas.

[Damien]

14 minutes ago, iffleyox said:

Honestly, if everyone else does it (both codes) then they’ll eventually have to. Otherwise they’ll end up sued to oblivion by anyone that ever gets dementia or various other neurological problems ever. 
 

barrister: ‘what makes you at the NRL different?’

won’t happen next week, but I reckon in the next 5 years max this will be the law/rule in professional and amateur R/rugby.

Merry Christmas.

Well no, thats awfully simplistic.

People do dangerous things all the time, whether socially or through their work. The key is showing those risks are adequately mitigated against and proper precautions are taken and proper procedures put in place.

Edited December 8, 2023 by Damien

[Harry Stottle]

28 minutes ago, DemonUK said:

Along with the other tackle laws brought in......interesting.  If I want to watch 11 v 11 I'm off to the round ball game

Can't say I disagree Demon, but whoa....... going to watch the the round ball game thats a bit drastic ain't it.

[gingerjon]

27 minutes ago, Archie Gordon said:

Have to agree with others. How did this video get signed off? The examples of illegal tackles mostly look fine.

This looks like an awful halfway house compromise where the RFL says armpit but means sternum and players, coaches and refs - all volunteers, some untrained - try to make sense of things in the community game whilst speccies scream and shout on the sideline.

As someone whose tackling ability can best be summed up as, "ask the big lad next to me to do it", it looks an awful lot like it's the video and associated messaging (which is obviously key to how it will be understood and delivered) that is the major issue rather than the changes themselves which appear (note: appear) to be based on trials, evidence etc.

[EggFace]

20 minutes ago, iffleyox said:

Honestly, if everyone else does it (both codes) then they’ll eventually have to. Otherwise they’ll end up sued to oblivion by anyone that ever gets dementia or various other neurological problems ever. 
 

barrister: ‘what makes you at the NRL different?’

won’t happen next week, but I reckon in the next 5 years max this will be the law/rule in professional and amateur R/rugby.

Merry Christmas.

Or they could just sign a form that they are consent to play a sport that may have dangeous impact....what next stopp head punching Boxing.

[gingerjon]

37 minutes ago, EggFace said:

I thought it doesn't apply to the pro/semi pro game ?

From the season after next it does.

[EggFace]

3 minutes ago, Harry Stottle said:

Can't say I disagree Demon, but whoa....... going to watch the the round ball game thats a bit drastic ain't it.

Maybe he can watch Gaelic Football.

[Dovster]

44 minutes ago, iffleyox said:

The issue is the brain hitting the inside of the head. The only ‘head protection’ is going to have to be between the brain and the skull…

In that case the games in trouble. We can never eradicate all knocks to the head out of the game.

[Harry Stottle]

30 minutes ago, Midlands hobo said:

In the NFL there is a massive push on helmet design. I believe no helmet from pre COVID is still legal due to advances. However the game itself is mutated by the early adoption of helmets. For example tackling techniques call for head on the ball as the helmet protection from knees and cuts allowed it.

Any adaptors to RL or any other ball sport will inevitably lead to changes in coaching and playing that will have unforeseen outcomes

I was always under the impression that in the NFL player's wore protection to offset injury from their opponents protection!

[gingerjon]

1 minute ago, Harry Stottle said:

I was always under the impression that in the NFL player's wore protection to offset injury from their opponents protection!

Headguards came in because the sport was killing too many young men each year and it was the only way to avoid a government ban.

[Dunbar]

1 hour ago, dkw said:

I still dont understand how any findings into this thinks high tackles is the main problem for concussion. Every ex pro or semi pro ive spoken to about it believe the majority they can ever remember were from either tacklers getting their heads in the wrong position, accidental head clashes (with opponents heads, knees, elbows etc) or from heads hitting the ground hard.

Again, the video is remarkable in the examples that it has shown.

Apart from some of the tackles tagged as illegal when they don't seem to hjave broken the new law, look at the example of a legal tackle at 1:34.  It clearly shows the risk of two tacklers clashing heads and for me looks like the most obvious tackle in the whole video that would have resulted in a HIA.

[EggFace]

They going about bloody high tackles yet just look at 1.37 with 3 players doing a legal tackling yet 2 players teammates tackling look like they are heading into friendly fire WTF

[Archie Gordon]

1 minute ago, gingerjon said:

... it looks an awful lot like it's the video and associated messaging (which is obviously key to how it will be understood and delivered) that is the major issue rather than the changes themselves which appear (note: appear) to be based on trials, evidence etc.

Exactly.

Coaches, players and refs will adapt to changes - they always do. I don't mind there being changes per se. It's the disconnect between the new laws and the video examples that effectively leave me unsure of what is and isn't going to be allowed.

I did also find it slightly bizarre that the 'good' examples include an uncontrolled head slam and a defenders head clash where one defender is left struggling to get back up. As I say, who let this video be published?

[Harry Stottle]

They have probably scoured the videos looking for tackle examples that typically represent the new laws, God help us in adjudging the borderline penalties that will no doubt be given.

[EggFace]

Bloody students.

[RugbyLeagueGeek]

16 minutes ago, Archie Gordon said:

Exactly.

Coaches, players and refs will adapt to changes - they always do. I don't mind there being changes per se. It's the disconnect between the new laws and the video examples that effectively leave me unsure of what is and isn't going to be allowed.

I did also find it slightly bizarre that the 'good' examples include an uncontrolled head slam and a defenders head clash where one defender is left struggling to get back up. As I say, who let this video be published?

Agreed. The video is terrible. I can foresee this rule bringing in some unintended consequences - e.g. not reducing concussions, but just changing the mechanism by which they occur. High tackles can be penalised within the current rules, and if they're worried about head-on-head contact from upright tackles, then why not just penalise the defender in that situation as well? The 'good' examples clearly show an incidence of where there is likely to be head-on-head contact from two low tacklers.

[OriginalMrC]

People throwing their toys out of the pram threatening to stop watching the sport every time there's something they don't like is amusing. The only people who care are the people making the statement themselves. The sport will continue because like every other sport it has to adapt and evolve with the times. 

[iffleyox]

41 minutes ago, Damien said:

Well no, thats awfully simplistic.

People do dangerous things all the time, whether socially or through their work. The key is showing those risks are adequately mitigated against and proper precautions are taken and proper procedures put in place.

I’d have said realistic rather than simplistic.

Then it would be for the NRL to show, in court, that any mitigations it had made, differently to what the rest of the world was doing, were adequate…. Which it may be able to do. Or it might not. 

if it did, and was somehow protected from lawsuits as a result, then the rest of the world could drop this and do whatever they were putatively doing instead. 
 

if on the other hand, they got taken to the cleaners for not doing what everyone else was doing….

Edited December 8, 2023 by iffleyox

[iffleyox]

33 minutes ago, EggFace said:

Or they could just sign a form that they are consent to play a sport that may have dangeous impact....what next stopp head punching Boxing.

I think boxing is in trouble too.

latest science is the brain isn’t fully developed on average until the mid to late twenties. So in the future might it be possible that people could successfully argue that they didn’t know what they were signing before they were 25?

I’m going to get accused of being simplistic again there - my point is I don’t think ‘or they could just sign a form’ is remotely the watertight solution to this that some seem to think.

we are in dark and murky water here

[Midlands hobo]

Anyone ever wonder why boxing dropped head guards. The things apparently in place for safety 

[WN83]

Got to make sure tacklers are going in lower, you know where there is a greater chance of them catching a hip or an elbow to their head

 

I think it'll take a couple of days of calming down before some rational thought can come through because currently I can't help but think the game is on a one way street to nowhere. I get the governing body are in a tough spot but this feels OTT. Also, I presume this is just a measure in the UK? We were playing to different rules than in the Southern Hemisphere already but it'll pretty much be a different sport if these changes aren't implemented across the board.