THERE has been much debate in recent weeks and months about the ‘hip drop tackle.’
St Helens star Morgan Knowles was handed a five-match ban last night at the Operational Rules Tribunal after being charged with a Grade D Dangerous Tackle.
As a result of Knowles’ hip-drop tackle, Wigan Warriors’ Mike Cooper will miss the rest of the Super League season following an ACL injury.
Huddersfield Giants winger Jermaine McGillvary had reacted to that tackle, tweeting on social media: “All the best in your recovery big man @MikeCooper_18. Honestly these tackles need to be outlawed….absolutely disgraceful. I know the feeling too well having been on the end of one last season which left me out for more than 6months.”
“It’s an awful tackle, it’s a tackle where the tackler doesn’t have control of their body and all the weight is going through you,” McGillvary said.
“Lucky for me I have gone on to play, but in that changing room a few weeks after, I was talking to Marlon our welfare manager that if it was my ACL I would have had to retire.
“I was 34 and it would have taken 12 months to recover. I was actually going to retire but luckily it was a broken leg, ruptured my MCL, PCL gone and ruptured my Meniscus.
“It’s an absolute miracle that my ACL didn’t go. Still to this day, I have physio every day because I can’t straighten my knee. My knee is still not right and I’m still a bit p*ssed off with that.
“Yeah it’s a contact sport and what happened to me is unfortunate but it has happened to another player who hasn’t got a deal next year.
“When I was in that position and if I was Mike Cooper last year I would have 100% retired. I don’t know what Mike Cooper is thinking and that’s what you have to deal with it.”
McGillvary doesn’t, however, think that Knowles meant to do it but has called on the sport for stiffer sanctions.
“I don’t think Morgan Knowles meant to do it, I know a lot of the boys at Saints and they are some of the best professionals ever in sport.
“They are a great club and a great set of lads, it’s just a poor selection of tackling. It is tough in the heat of the moment, we are fatigued.
“Some of the players are living pay cheque to pay cheque but if that pay cheque goes for three months then a few of us some would be f*cked. It’s a tough game, it doesn’t need to have shitty techniques with it.
“I reckon stiffer sanctions would help, I don’t believe that people mean to do it with intent, I don’t care who the player is it’s just the technique. You are trying to slow down the ruck and the opposition.
