Paul Kent: NRL comes out swinging over head shots with sweeping review

The referees seem to miss the point, but the NRL is dragging the game into line over concussion standards with beefed-up penalties for players who deliver high hits.

Paul Kent says the referees still aren't getting it right on concussions on the field.

Nobody can tell us how many more spots on the brain were created last weekend when Adam Reynolds got knocked out and Nathan Cleary was walked from the field or, worst of all, Ryan Matterson failed to get up.

After talking about concussions for all of last week, the NRL suffered three more high-profile knockouts and met the injury with little resistance.

The referees seem to have trouble understanding what is important in the game anymore.

Latrell Mitchell gets sent to the sin bin for the lightest of touches on Daly Cherry-Evans, because it is deemed a professional foul on some archaic ruling, and Felise Kaufusi repositions his elbow so it drives Matterson’s head into the dirt with no chance for Matterson to protect himself and the referee, Klein, goes weak.

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Matterson was possibly Parramatta’s best player at the time.

He did not play another minute.

Yet, Kaufusi played on and the Storm tried to play down his violence.

So, forget the testimony for Melbourne coach Craig Bellamy, who continues to gaslight the rugby league community that has rewarded him so well.

“I didn’t see too much in it,” he said after the game.

The spots on the brain are the great evil in today’s sport.

They are deposits of a protein called tau, caused by inflammation to the brain, which are caused by concussion and are what doctors now call chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), and which can lead to such horrific developments such as early onset dementia, Alzheimer’s, depression and psychosis.

They once were thought to exist only in boxers, who in that homespun way were said to be “punch drunk”, but now anybody who suffers a concussion is vulnerable.

Matterson was unconscious on the ground.

The bunker saw enough to inform Klein that the tackle was worth putting Kaufusi on report, but nothing more.

Dallin Watene-Zelezniak collects Nathan Cleary with a swinging arm on Saturday, leaving him in doubt for the Panthers’ clash with the Storm. Picture: Robb Cox/NRL Photos

Two days later Penrith coach Ivan Cleary had to watch his son walked from the field after the second high tackle on him in a matter of seconds collected him good.

Then he sat by to see the offender, Dallin Watene-Zelezniak, finish the game before later being charged with a paltry two-week penalty.

Cleary, whose involvement as a coach and father carries extra dimension, chose his words carefully yesterday, saying, “I don’t think it matches up”.

“Both incidents,” he said, “were totally avoidable”.

Many years ago when the great innovation in rugby league was the invention of colour television, league bosses sat around and watched the game in full colour and were horrified at what they saw.

“We can’t bring this into people’s homes,” declared the game’s boss, Kevin Humphreys.

People would be unable to get through their dinner.

Felise Kaufusi will serve a two-mach suspension for this hit on Ryan Matterson.

Humphreys appointed Jim Comans his new chairman of the NSW Rugby League judiciary in 1980 with a clear edict to clean up the game.

Comans, a former World War II bomber pilot, began handing out suspensions for violent acts that were records in their length, going 12 months and 15 months and entire seasons.

When Steve Mortimer appeared before the judiciary once too often Comans had enough.

He told him that if he did not fix his game “rugby league will just be a memory for you”.

By cleaning the game of foul play it allowed the athleticism of the players to flourish and be celebrated and it spawned an unprecedented period of growth, paving the way for Tina Turner to take it to another level again in the late 1980s.

The game has reached a similar point.

Concussion is now among the greatest threats to the game’s survival and so, on Monday, good news filtered through with NRL chief executive Andrew Abdo confirming the NRL is looking to finally protect the players.

NRL head of football Graham Annesley also spoke to referees boss Jared Maxwell about the weekend’s oversights.

It is not enough to introduce concussion protocols while those inflicting the injury go lightly punished.

“There is going to be a higher focus on that from the bunker,” Annesley said.

“Particularly when there’s an injury as a result.

“I’m hopeful we’ll see that improve next weekend.”

South Sydney halfback Adam Reynolds scored a try but didn’t see out the game against Manly. Picture: Cameron Spencer/Getty Images

Abdo is looking towards creating a new era, protecting the players and the game they play.

The NRL is setting up a multifaceted review to bring the game into line with modern standards and among all that are beefed-up punishments for players too careless with their elbows and swinging arms.

“It is a brutal game but whenever you see acts of physicality that are not in the spirit of the game and can cause significant damage to the player and potentially were negligent or intentional, we need to make sure that there’s enough deterrents and consequences for players who do that,” Abdo said.

“We are not going to waste time on this. We need to see some changes.”

It is about time.

Originally published as Paul Kent: NRL comes out swinging over head shots with sweeping review