Willie Mason got it wrong on the shoulder charge, the game is not soft

SENIOR players and long-time fans forget that rugby league is a gladiatorial sport, not a bloodsport.

Manly's Willie Mason during the round 9 NRL game between the Manly Warringah Sea Eagles and the Newcastle Knights at Brookvale Oval .Picture Gregg Porteous

WILLIE Mason is a good mate of mine.

He was there standing next to Sonny Bill Williams when the shoulder charge was at its peak and he’s there still after it was outlawed.

He got flattened with one of the best shoulder charges you’ll ever see when David Kidwell launched into him with a shattering hit during the 2006 Tri-Nations Test between Australia and New Zealand.

He has more right than anyone to talk about the shoulder charge.

But I don’t agree with everything he said this week.

Just because the shoulder charge is outlawed, doesn’t mean the game is soft. It is still the toughest sport we have.

Willie said he was “embarrassed” to be playing in the NRL right now after he was suspended for two matches for a delicate shoulder charge that barely registered on the scale.

The game’s bigger than the biff. It’s about much more than that.

You’re kidding yourself if you think the shoulder charge is the only way to hurt someone on the footy field.

Look at what the Burgess Brothers, George and Tom, did to North Queensland on Thursday night. Look at what Melbourne star Jesse Bromwich has done all year.

More importantly, look at the skill those guys match with their ability to intimidate almost everyone on the footy field.

The game is about those incredible skills we see every week. It’s why we love it.

The game can survive without brutality, it can’t survive without freakish skill.

What makes the skill in rugby league so revered is that those skills are tested in the toughest setting in sport.

Senior players and long-time fans forget that rugby league is a gladiatorial sport, not a bloodsport.

If all you want to see blood, go and watch the UFC or boxing.

A lot of fans have the guilty pleasure of wanting to see a fight on the football field. I understand the spectacle it creates. Not everyone sees it that way, though.

Willie Mason plays a tough game.

The game is not the same as it was when Willie started bashing blokes at the Bulldogs.

He comes from a different era when shoulder charges were play on. When punches and brawls were routine and encouraged. When head-high tackles were a slap-on-the-wrist offence.

The game is more sanitised than when Willie made his debut in round 13, 2000.

Sanitised doesn’t mean softer.

The game needed to be cleaned up. Almost every contact sport in the world has been sanitised from how it was played 20 years ago.

We applaud guys like Gorden Tallis for how tough he was, but when I see the hits that happen every week in the NRL, I honestly believe guys like Steve Matai, Marty Taupau, Nigel Plum, Dylan Napa and Jared Waerea-Hargreaves are every bit as tough.

The game’s changed and the players need to change with it. Calling the game soft is wrong. It’s less barbaric and wild, but no less tough. The senior players left in the game like Willie need to realise this.

What’s been taken away from guys like Willie are the weapons like the shoulder charge and head-high tackles players used to have to inflict pain.

I ran 20-25 hit-ups a game playing on the wing at the Broncos and Dragons and a lot of those were running straight into the biggest shoulders in the game like Ian Roberts and David Gillespie.

The truth is I’d rather do that than be playing against the guys playing this weekend.

I’ve said a few times, I’m glad I’m retired now.

It’s a hard game, just like it was when I played.