Paul Kent: The simple solution to stop crusher tackle fakes
The NRL has a fresh ‘crisis’ with players taking advantage of a crackdown on crusher tackles. PAUL KENT says the answer to this new problem is an old one.
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Common wisdom, the kind not as common as some might prefer, is an ailment that has afflicted rugby league since the great 42nd Street scandal of ’89, when months of preparation for the grand final halftime show went undone for an easily avoidable problem.
Somebody forgot to bring the cassette tape with the music.
Typically, the game responded in its usual way, going for bigger and better at every step afterwards, way overcompensating, although not always successful.
A similar strategy has been employed in the judicial fields within the game where, after years of grumbling about unfair punishments, headquarters overcompensated by insisting ex-players would now run the judicial process, as if the law is now secondary.
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A jury judged by its peers, and all that.
It has not been without its mistakes, though.
Some years back then-Parramatta coach Brian Smith watched the panel of ex-players wrestling with complex legal issues one cold winter night and, from his seat behind the media, stood and walked out in disgust.
“It’s like apples and oranges,” he said.
As Smith identified, it could also be argued that in the argument to restore justice to the process the pendulum has swung too far the other way.
The worry of involving only ex-players, and not somebody with a deeper understanding of the rules, revealed itself again this week when Parramatta’s Marata Niukore escaped suspension for breaking Brandon Smith’s jaw.
Match review co-ordinator Michael Robertson said the committee judged it a “front on, ball-and-all tackle” and that the injuries sustained were irrelevant to the lack of charge.
“We can elevate a charge based on injuries but we can’t charge on injuries itself,” he said, which is fair enough.
But it overlooked the most crucial aspect of the tackle.
It broke Smith’s jaw.
Too often the players err on the side of the players, at the omission of the rules.
If fracturing a jaw when the tackler’s shoulder comes into contact with the face of the ballrunner is not the definition of a “careless” high tackle, it is hard to imagine what it is.
The committee went through their checklist; no swinging arm, he wasn’t launching the shoulder, and the first point of contact, they believed, was simultaneous between shoulder and chest.
The ex-players applied all the logic of ex-players but missed the most vital part: Niukore’s shoulder came into contact with Smith’s face.
His head recoiled on impact and his jaw was broken and needed repair to the point Smith is now having dinner through a straw.
The damage speaks for itself.
It should not matter, in the case of a careless charge, whether contact was simultaneous.
Never one to be discouraged, the game is on the verge of again over-thinking it.
Currently the game is getting itself into another pickle over the crusher tackling and the recent habit of players laying down and faking injury to milk a penalty.
A laundry list of solutions have been proposed, the game typically overcompensating.
If players want to lay down, some argue, then send them off for a mandatory head injury assessment, that’ll stop them.
Only long enough for the natural follow-up, of course, which is that every time a coach felt like a free interchange he would instruct his players to grab their neck in pain and wait for the referee to order them off for assessment.
The best solution was revived by Mick Ennis during the week, who is starting to learn the way it rolls in the NRL. Namely, if a new problem comes up in rugby league, a background check more often reveals it has come up before.
Ennis recalled there was a similar spate of gamesmanship some years back when the bunker thought it would be wise to interfere on high tackles and, on cue, players began laying down if as much as a brush across the cheek was inflicted.
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All sorts of possible solutions were raised as the game wrestled with the best solution, many the same as the arguments being raised now.
The solution, in the end, was to do nothing.
The bunker simply stayed out of it, letting play go on for the match review committee to decide later.
With no immediate benefit players soon stopped faking high tackles and laying down.
A similarly measured response of non-action will stop the fake crushers, too.