Warrington Wolves coach Tony Smith believes tackles that involve leg-lifting are “unnecessary”, after Ben Evans suffered a nasty injury during the club’s defeat to St Helens on Thursday night.
Evans spent the night on hospital after rupturing a hamstring during the match, and had to be assisted from the field following the injury.
Speaking to the media after the game, Smith described the gruesome extent of Evans’ injury, and said that the style of tackling which injured Evans is completely unnecessary in the game.
“He’s ruptured his hamstring, it’s a wishbone type situation where his legs are pulled apart and it does happen from time to time,” Smith said.
“Sometimes this is the outcome. When you’re leg-lifting and use that as a method of tackling it can go wrong for some people and it’s nasty.”
Smith also said that the style of tackling in question has been pulled up to the attention of those in charge, but there are no rules to protect anyone thus far.
He said: “It’s a nasty injury. It’s certainly something that’s been brought to the attention of the league to have a look at these types of tackles.
“So far we’ve got no rules in place to protect our players. We protect them from some high tackles at times, but leg-lifting and particularly single leg-lifting is a really unnecessary style.
