Proof the hip drop is on it’s way to shattering a career if the NRL doesn’t stamp it out

If confused fans, commentators, match officials, NRL coaches and the governing body want a graphic example of how the hip drop tackle is on its way towards shattering careers, this is it.

Dragons winger Mathew Feagai will carry seven screws fastened to his right leg for the rest of his life.

If confused fans, commentators, match officials, NRL coaches and the governing body want a graphic example of how the hip drop tackle is on it’s way towards shattering careers, this is it.

It’s also the image that proves it’s time the NRL judiciary got tough on doing more to rub it out.

Feagai, 24, won’t play NRL again for three months after being felled last week in a hip drop tackle by Manly’s Toafofoa Sipley.

Sipley has been suspended for four matches by the NRL.

Feagai won’t be back for another 12 to 14 weeks.

Four matches is a weak deterrent by the NRL judiciary – and we’ll get to that shortly.

Mat Feagai suffered a terrible injury from a hip drop.

The X-ray image shows the delicate repair work Feagai required during surgery last week for a fractured fibula and high-grade syndesmosis injury.

The latter, also known as a high ankle sprain, involves a complete tear or rupture of the ligaments connecting the tibia and fibula bones in the ankle.

This is the most severe type of syndesmosis injury, often accompanied by a fracture and causing significant instability and pain.

The supplied image from Feagai hasn’t been forwarded by an aggrieved footballer looking for blame or seeking sympathy.

It was also provided by Feagai on the premise that we make it clear that neither he or the Dragons have any personal issue or angst towards Sipley or Manly.

The entire game knows that coaches don’t coach hip drop tackles.

Rather, the image was sent upon this columnist’s request to help the entire game take a graphic look at the lifelong damage of hip drop tackles and to decide whether it’s doing enough to eliminate the dangerous tackle that in addition to Feagai, has also in the last week, rendered Roosters forward Nat Butcher to the sidelines with a serious knee injury for the next six weeks.

Roosters forward Nat Butcher was injured by a hip drop tackle. Picture: NRL Images

There are increasing layers of issues surrounding the hip drop tackle of which the game is being confronted, most notably it’s spawning as a result of the game being played at breakneck speed.

According to the NRL’s own rules, a hip drop tackle is where a defending player in joining or committing a tackle, drops or uses their own body weight to apply pressure to an opponent’s legs in such a way as to constitute an unacceptable risk of injury to the tackled player.

The NRL rightfully point out that they have spent at least the past five-years trying to educate all and sundry what a hip drop tackle is by the way of edicts, educational videos and weekly explainers via NRL head of football Graham Annesley.

So much so, the NFL have even used the NRL to mentor them on how they too, rid American football of the tackle.

Yet here we are, never more confused and seemingly unwilling to get tough on the tackle that snaps players legs and sidelines them for months on end.

The game is at a point of uncertainty around hip drop tackles, which was evident on Easter Monday where Wests Tigers forward Samuela Fainu was penalised and placed on report by the referee and bunker for an alleged hip drop on Eels forward Kelma Tuilagi – of whom scored a try in the next set of play – only for the NRL match review committee to later clear Fainu of any foul play.

The match officials and bunker aren’t the only ones confused.

Over the past fortnight, some of the game’s greatest coaches have declared they have no idea what a hip drop tackle is, including Ivan Cleary and Wayne Bennett.

The NRL will argue this is just “coach speak” and tactical deflection due to their player being penalised or suspended for committing a hip drop tackle.

However, long-serving Storm GM of football Frank Ponissi also commented last week, “it needs to be re-clarified (because) at the moment there is confusion.”

In addition, this column has learned that at the point at which Penrith’s Mitch Kenny landed with his weight on Butcher’s leg last weekend, the entire Roosters coaches box screamed “hip drop, hip drop”, only for play to continue without any repercussions.

Cleary has lost his influential hooker Kenny for the next three weeks to suspension for his role in putting Butcher on the sidelines for the next six weeks.

Once again, it’s another case of the injured spending longer on the sidelines than the perpetrator.

“I feel like the hip drop isn’t a hip drop anymore because the wording has changed so it can be any part of your body,” Cleary said, arguing the game is played at breakneck speed and that players don’t deliberately go out to injure opponents.

“I feel like it’s an eye for an eye so if someone gets injured, someone has got to be at fault.”

However, then you’ve got Roosters coach Trent Robinson who says he’s in no doubt as to what a hip drop tackle is.

“The hip drop is really simple,” Robinson said on Thursday.

“People are going in with their right shoulder to make a tackle and they swing onto their left hip and drop their weight onto the leg of an opponent, it’s not that difficult to see.”

Respected NRL judiciary chairman Geoff Bellew SC warned last Tuesday that Sipley’s four-week ban should be viewed as a clear indication “to all players that dangerous contact of (such) kind will be met with significant penalties.”

If four weeks out of the game is viewed as “significant”, how does the game explain Feagai having seven screws drilled into his leg and not being able to play again for at least three months?

Originally published as Proof the hip drop is on it’s way to shattering a career if the NRL doesn’t stamp it out