Ban the kick-off? I’m all for player welfare, but this is madness

When St George Illawarra players finish their video review of the Anzac Day loss to the Roosters – given the 60-18 scoreline, it might go for a month – coach Shane Flanagan will turn his attention to kick-offs.

Centre Moses Suli was heavily concussed in the first tackle of the match when his head collected the elbow then head of Roosters prop Jared Waerea-Hargreaves, who was carting the ball forward.

The incident has re-ignited the silly debate about banning the kick-off in NRL matches.

Anyone who watched the game, and subsequent replays of the incident, will understand that Suli’s concussion had nothing to do with the kick-off. It had nothing to do with Waerea-Hargreaves pushing off the proverbial back fence. Nothing to do with the Dragons’ left edge hunting the ball-carrier with murderous intent. Nothing to do with the rules of the game as they currently stand.

It had everything to do with the unpredictable idiosyncrasies of a collision sport that can’t be scripted. Collisions that can’t be outlawed nor legislated out of the game.

The head-on angle was crystal clear: as the Dragons defenders swarmed towards Waerea-Hargreaves, Jaydn Su’a bumped into Suli, who was shifted off course as the tackle was being made.

Moses Suli was nudged out of position just before the tackle on Jared Waerea-Hargreaves.Credit: Nine

It could’ve happened on the third tackle of a set in the middle of the field. It just so happened to occur from the kick-off.

“I spoke to Moses about it this morning,” Flanagan told me on Monday. “Su’a bumped him and he got his timing wrong. He was bracing himself for the tackle, he knew what sort of tackle he had to do. He was going to dip. But Su’a bumped him and there was a head clash.

“Timing and technique are everything. We’re going to talk about it today then practice getting it right. We’ll react to what happened with Moses and work on our technique on kick-offs.”

Thank you, Flanno, for introducing some sanity to proceedings. It’s the sort of common sense sadly lacking in most discussions about concussion.

Dragons centre Moses Suli was concussed in the first tackle on Anzac Day.

Let’s hope the NRL is listening before it gets spooked into making more cosmetic changes to satisfy those with little interest in the game’s long-term existence.

The NRL loosely discussed the idea of banning the kick-off during the pre-season, but instead tinkered with the rules to “incentivise” short kick-offs. If the ball goes out on the full, or doesn’t go the required 10 metres, the opposition team isn’t penalised – the other team simply gets possession via a play-the-ball.

Does it eliminate entirely the risk of concussion — or any other injury?

“Short kick-offs take out big collisions, but they bring in other issues,” Flanagan said. “Like people jumping and landing on their heads.”

NRL chief executive Andrew Abdo confirmed there are no immediate plans to kick the kick-off to the curb, although he admitted it will be discussed during the next end-of-season review.

Like many of us, Abdo wonders what a ban on kick-offs, or restarts from long kick-offs, would look like.

Maybe the player who catches the ball on his or her try line can yell “mark”. Or we could restart play from a line-out. Perhaps we could put flags in the players’ pockets. Or stipulate that a mere touch with a hand is enough to call “tackle”.

If the collision from a kick-off is too dangerous, then surely the same applies to the long drop-out. If long drop-outs are too dangerous, then surely the bomb should also be outlawed.

Forget those beautiful swirling, floating kicks from Matt Burton and Nathan Cleary and the like. Too dangerous.

Newcastle’s Kalyn Ponga leaves the field after being concussed against the Tigers last year.Credit: Getty

All collision sports will look vastly different to how they do now in 20 years, if not sooner. It wouldn’t surprise if they didn’t exist at all.

Other sports, namely the NFL, have wrestled with such issues for some time.

American football’s governing body effectively made kick returns optional in 2018, but team owners voted in a raft of changes just a month ago to “address the lowest kickoff return rate in NFL history during the 2023 season”.

If it really wants to reduce concussion, rugby league needs to get serious about two areas.

The first, which I’ve been banging on about in this column for years, is addressing the issue through tackle technique, not band-aid punishments and crackdowns.

Stopping head-high tackles is all well and good, but most concussions in the NRL are suffered by defenders. Exhibit A: Moses Suli.

South Sydney coach Jason Demetriou told me last year that poor tackling technique was as much to blame as anything. Exhibit B: Cameron Murray, who has suffered a series of concussions while defending. Exhibit C: Kalyn Ponga, who missed most of last season after he, too, decided to tackle a Wests Tigers player with his head.

“We’ve done a lot of work about staying taller for longer, not putting ourselves in a position where we can knock ourselves out,” Demetriou said. “We worked on that today: making sure we’re keeping our feet underneath us, keeping our eyes on the target, and not dipping in too late where any footwork can cause us problems. The message is, ‘I want to look after you first. Second, we can’t afford to have people coming off the field all the time because they’re knocking themselves out’.”

The second area that needs addressing is junior football, and limiting contact until young brains are fully formed.

To those wanting to ban the kick-off, may I humbly ask where the line should be drawn? When does it end? What do you want rugby league to look like?

If you want to eliminate concussions from the game, you’ll need to eliminate the game.

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