Wendell Sailor: the rule the NRL needs to change

WHEN I was a player, it was a badge of honour to come back on to the ground after copping a serious injury. But the game has changed.

NRL Rd 5 - Bulldogs v Rabbitohs

THIS week the Australian Rugby League Commission made a major change to the concussion rules.

Now, once a player is removed from the field they have to stay off for the rest of the game.

It’s a step in the right direction because player welfare is critical, but you’re going to have problems like you had last weekend with Issac Luke leaving the field in the first half with a concussion for the Rabbitohs after being kicked in the head by Josh Morris.

When it’s out of your hands, it leaves you short.

That’s why the NRL needs to introduce an 18th man.

That Rabbitohs-Bulldogs game was a perfect example when you would go, “Look, Luke’s not coming back. Boom. Activate the 18th man.”

Imagine if it’s finals time and Johnathan Thurston is taken out early on and can’t come back out. Now I don’t think our coaches would coach that way — to target a player to deliberately hurt them — but you have to tread carefully.

Issac Luke leaves the game after being kicked in the head against the Bulldogs.

It’s been argued that an 18th man would be exploited by coaches; that they’d put a guy like Ben Barba in that fifth bench spot and get one of their 17 to fake an injury with 20 minutes to go, so Barba could come in and make an impact against the tired forwards.

To counter that, heavy fines should be handed out to clubs who use the 18th man in the wrong way.

The 18th man should only be accessible if a player is injured and that brings me to my second point: we need independent doctors.

The strengthened concussion rules state that a player will be removed from the game if they suffer a loss of consciousness, fall to the ground without taking protective action, have a seizure, or experience memory impairment or balance disturbance.

We need independent doctors on hand to assess the players’ conditions because team doctors are going to feel the pressure from coaching staff. They’re going to a bit gun shy.

It’s been argued coaches would exploit the 18th man rule by introducing impact players like Ben Barba late in the game.

When I was a player, unless you’d torn something or you were put on a stretcher, you came back on. It was a badge of honour.

Now the game has changed. I even see it in the juniors, that players don’t come back out.

The Bulldogs’ James Graham made the point a couple of weeks ago that it should be up to the players if they want to play on or not after copping a knock. That’s not what it’s about, because if you leave it up to the players, nine times out of 10 they want to go back on because they don’t want to let their teammates down. They don’t want to be seen as soft.

Going back out there is seen as gladiatorial. It’s all part and parcel of taking a hit. James Graham is a warrior in the modern game but I don’t agree with him here. You’ve got to take it out of the players’ hands.