Paul Kent: The NRL’s high tackle crackdown has been long overdue

It is time to put some of the nonsense arguments against the NRL’s hardline stance on high tackles and concussion in a deep dark grave, writes Paul Kent.

Digital art by Boo Bailey.

Let’s do the maths quickly …

How many more concussions was the Rugby League Players Association prepared to accept, in ensuing weeks, while consulting with the NRL on the upgraded rules interpretation?

How many more players do the Flat Earthers, who continue to deny the long-term damage of concussions, despite the growing evidence, want suffering from irreversible brain damage that will one day cause them to look at their wife of 40 years and ask her name?

Is a dozen enough? Or is one too many?

Watch The 2021 NRL Telstra Premiership Live & On-Demand with No Ad-Breaks During Play. New to Kayo? Try 14-Days Free Now >

Ryan Papenhuyzen was knocked out against the Dragons last weekend. Picture: Bradley Kanaris/Getty Images

Nobody knows how many concussions were actually averted last weekend and Thursday night and Friday night and into this weekend because of the NRL’s new stance.

The brutal truth is that Ryan Papenhuyzen’s concussion last weekend, square in the middle of the NRL’s crackdown, came at the right time to make everybody realise that steps must be taken immediately to begin bringing down the target zone in the game.

In fact, they are long overdue.

And the smarter ones around the game realise it.

Behind the outrage and the headlines this week the greatest news to come across this desk was Wednesday’s phone hook-up with the clubs where the NRL declared, with some finality, that the new protocols are forever.

And it was the greatest news because as the NRL hammered home its determination to stay the course, not a yelp of protest arose from the clubs, despite the public narrative.

It simply must happen, and it is time to put some of the nonsense arguments in a deep dark grave.

For too long the game has slowly chipped away at its own rules, persuaded by a narrative from those with vested interests to keep players on the field even though they have broken the laws of the game.

A send-off was too severe, they argued, so the rules were weakened down to these watery words where interpretation was more important than its literal meaning, and more and more players began getting knocked out.

There was a time, when tackling was different, that concussions in the game were weeks, even months, apart. Now we often get several every weekend.

And some will argue that greater awareness and scrutiny are the reasons more are identified than in the past and, in a small respect, that is true.

The micro-concussions are more highly scrutinised, and a loss of balance is enough to force a player off even if he recovers quickly, where once it was not. But the great concussive knockout where the player is stretchered off, or aided off with rubbery legs, is far more prevalent than it used to be.

Player head knocks and concussion are under the microscope in the NRL. Digital art: Boo Bailey

With that in mind, it is time to stop this commentary around the game that it has gone too far.

And former players, despite their pedigree, are often the worst.

High tackles, even the accidental ones, have been illegal in the game since the first kick-off at Birchgrove Oval in 1908. Why there remains an ignorance to this is uncertain.

Then they argue the cost is too severe if a player is sent off.

The absurdity around this pops up regularly. When a spate of high tackles crept in some years back the argument soon rose about issuing more severe penalties, like the sin-bin or send-off to stop them happening.

But some argued that 10 minutes in the bin was too heavy a price to pay and so a five-minute sin-bin must be introduced instead. So, in a bid to stamp out foul play, the argument was being made to introduce penalties light enough so the offence was still acceptable to commit.

It’s madness. A similar argument, using misdirection, is now taking place.

Some state quite emphatically that the new rules won’t do anything to stop concussions because so many of today’s high tackles are accidents and you can’t prevent an accident, so why should players be punished for an accident?

Jason Taumalolo was sent to the sin-bin for making contact with the head of an opponent on Thursday night. Picture: Ian Hitchcock/Getty Images

This sentence does everything to avoid any kind of common sense, but is pushed along without pause for even a polite blush from some.

The unspoken truth is that over time we have allowed poor technique to be disguised under the cloak of being an accident and so high tackles have become acceptable.

Another misdirection is the high tackles are caused by fatigue, and so the new rules brought in to increase fatigue are really to blame.

Herman Ese’ese’s send off last Saturday had nothing to do with fatigue. Ese’ese flew out of the line like he was shot out of a cannon and when Brian To’o acted under the laws of self-preservation — and sidestepped away from Ese’ese — the big Titan forward stuck out his arm like a limbo rod and collected To’o around the throat.

Some, quite wrongly, argued that it was fatigue that caused Ese’ese’s tackle. Some have argued he was wrong-footed and it was a simple accident, nothing more.

The argument against both is duty of care.

Ese’ese has an obligation to play within the rules. To argue he was wrong-footed so had no choice but to sling his arm out is to ignore the rules. You can’t coathanger an opponent.

For much of this week many players, encouraged by their union, have argued against the NRL’s crackdown, complaining the rule makers are ruining the game.

Titans forward Herman Ese'ese was sent off for his high tackle on Brian To’o.

The concussion crackdown is a rule that’s only intention is to protect the health of the players. Entertainment, revenue, ratings … they are all foreign to this argument.

Why the players continue to complain when the rule is designed only to protect their health is bizarre. The RLPA complained about the lack of consultation.

Again, how many more concussions, in ensuing weeks, was the RLPA prepared to accept while eating biscuits in committee meetings?

It happened again Thursday when they took on the NRL’s statistics that the increase in fatigue under the new rules is only minimal.

It is hard to understand the players and former players’ opinions until you step back and realise, respectfully, they do not know any other way.

Players have been defending this way in the game for a good 15 years or more, getting away with it. It is all they know, the version of rugby league they grew up with, so one they believe has existed all along.

But it wasn’t always this way.

SHORT SHOT

Time is often the enemy when it comes to cover-ups and now, with time, Cricket Australia is scrambling to save its own backside again, much like it did at the time.

The players are merely collateral damage. Again.

The whole investigation stunk of a cover-up at the time but it got lost in the explosive punishments handed out to skipper Steve Smith, David Warner and Cameron Bancroft.

Year-long suspensions cost all three significant amounts of money and reputation.

Cameron Bancroft reignited the ball-tampering scandal. Picture: AAP Image/Michael Dodge

Compared to other ball-tampering penalties around the world all three paid a severe price.

Clearly the punishments were as much about preserving Australia’s reputation in world cricket as it was about teaching any of the three a lesson in what they did.

But, as happens too often in modern sports administration, the ham-fisted performance from CA was overshadowed by the punishments and is only now coming to light again.

When Bancroft insinuated the bowlers knew what was happening in a recent interview he was confirming what most believed; bowlers play so much cricket and are so finely tuned into polishing the ball after each delivery that it would be impossible for them not to notice.

Yet CA went with only those who could not deny knowledge. So they punished them hard, effectively shut down the investigation, and the comfort of time saw Bancroft let slip his comment.

And now CA says the statements given at the time will not be made public and CA has no reason for a new investigation.

Wow.

Originally published as Paul Kent: The NRL’s high tackle crackdown has been long overdue