Banning Billy Slater from NRL grand final ‘crazy’, says Darren Lockyer
DARREN Lockyer was a member of the NRL committee which oversaw the drafting of a rule change to eradicate the shoulder charge.
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DARREN Lockyer was a member of the NRL committee which oversaw the drafting of a rule change to eradicate the shoulder charge, but says Billy Slater should not be suspended from the NRL grand final.
Lockyer said a side-on shoulder charge such as Slater’s, which has seen him charged with an offence that could ban him from Sunday’s grand final, had been “caught up’’ in rugby league’s determined push to rub shoulder charges to the head from the sport.
The former Australian captain is a long-serving and current member of the NRL’s competition committee, which oversees issues on the playing of the game.
DEBATE: Case for and against Slater
FITTLER: Why NRL must ban Billy
Former Sydney Roosters premiership captain Brad Fittler said fullbacks would feel free to shoulder-charge with impunity in cover defence should Slater beat his charge at the judiciary on Tuesday night.
Lockyer, a panellist with Fittler on Channel 9’s Sunday Footy Show, said it would be “crazy’’ for Slater to be rubbed out for his tackle on Cronulla’s Sosaia Feki in Friday’s preliminary final.
Lockyer explained the evolution and fallout as he sees it of the game’s crackdown on the shoulder charge as: “In 2015, there was a young man who died as a result of a shoulder charge, James Ackerman (in an Intrust Super Cup game),’’ Lockyer said.
“The game decided to come down hard on shoulder charges and the grading was very high, a grade one charge is 200 points (equal to a two-game suspension.
“(It was) not just for the players’ safety but for the parents to be comfortable that the sport is as safe as it can be.
“To get rid of the dangerous ones out of the game, the lesser ones, such as Billy Slater coming across, have been caught up in that category. The charges that have been laid over the three years (since 2015) have come down significantly (in number). It would be crazy to see him rubbed out for a grand final for that play.’’
Lockyer raised again the subject of applying a “weighting’’ for suspensions applying to big games such as a grand final.
It was an argument used by some commentators to say Cameron Smith (2009) and Isaac Luke (2014) should not have been suspended from a grand final, as they were.
“Is missing a grand final the same as missing round 22?’’ Lockyer said.
Fittler said the biggest things in Slater’s favour in Tuesday night’s judiciary hearing are “it’s Billy and it’s a grand final’’.
“He will sit in front of three people who have to say, ‘You can’t play next week’,’’ Fittler said.
“The (the NRL) graded spear tackles in 2014 very high to change the habits of players. Shoulder charges are the same boat.
“If you want to eradicate it out of the game, it (Slater’s charge) has got to stick.
“You have to take away from it that it’s Billy Slater and a grand final and uphold what they are doing … all fullbacks are going to come across and say ‘well now I can shoulder charge in this instance because Billy Slater did it’.”
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