Loose Pass: Collisions, injuries and calendar clashes
This week we will mostly be concerning ourselves with the ongoing collision problem, injuries and calendar clashes…
Fair call?
A new sanction, called the High Tackle Warning System, is being trialed at the U20s World Championship in Argentina next week. The sanction is aimed at deterring tacklers going into tackles too high by warning them in the event of a resultant head injury/concussion, with three accumulated warnings resulting in a likely one-match suspension. The idea is that the threat of sanction forces the tackler to go lower.
It’s a laudable attempt at righting a player welfare problem, but it’s not without precedented problems. A measure lowering the contact height of tackler onto tackle to below the nipple line was trialled in the championship this season, but it was ended after a rise in the instances of concussion – primarily for the tackler.
“We need to analyse the data in more detail, but our preliminary analysis has shown all of these (additional) incidents occurred when a bent-at-the-waist tackler was attempting to tackle a bent-at-the-waist ball carrier following a short pass from the scrum-half,” said RFU interim chief executive Nigel Melville in the wake of the trial’s initial results.
“This is an area that the trial was not specifically looking to influence, as the primary focus was to reduce the risk of concussion where ball carrier and tackler were both upright.”
So back to square one then. But the problem of unregulated collisions is not going away soon. And sanctions can only go so far.
It’s not just the collisions either, the high ball persists in its greyness of area – a quick look at Rob Kearney’s ‘contest’ for his own high ball with Stuart Hogg last Saturday is a prime example. Kearney left the field for ten minutes, Hogg’s game was ended.
The general issue of concussion is not one that rugby needs to soul-search over per se. It’s easy to say with hindsight that we could have foreseen the concussive effect of the increase in player size and speed, but coaches, players, administrators and others’ natural primary concern is either gaining competitive advantage or ensuring the attractiveness of the game, which is wrapped up in its gladiatorial elements. Bigger and faster gladiators mean better chances of winning and a more delightful product for most. But the undoubted concussive side-effect of it all now needs urgent and drastic action, otherwise soul-searching will be needed.
We’ve no ideas about the tackle, although we’d welcome suggestions below to start the debate. Something needs to be altered somehow, which maintains the gladiatorial element but reduces the risk. But with the high ball, we’ve one idea, pilfered from our transatlantic cousins.
In the NFL, a receiver from a punt can call a fair catch at any time by waving his arm above his head as the ball is in the air – not unlike a mark, but the call is made in advance rather than at the moment of catching. No wave means no fair catch, and the receiver is free to run back into contact at will. A drop of the ball means the ball is live and free to be recovered by either side. Once the catcher has waved his hand, he is sacred: not one finger can be lightly placed upon him until the ball goes live again.
At the moment in rugby, it’s the receiver who is at heavy, heavy risk under a high ball, especially given the fad for jumping into a catch and resultant mid-air collisions. The burden on the referee to adjudge the mid-air clash and its consequences is huge, while the minutiae of factors within such collisions are so numerous that referee decisions end up questionable far too often (we’re staggered Kearney did not see red, however nice a chap he is).
Giving the receiver a fair catch in the same way as NFL – with a free-kick as the reward in rugby – would achieve several things. It would remove the risk of mid-air collisions, or at least hand the decision of acceptance of risk to the catcher (he is not forced to opt for the fair catch). It would remove the grey area burden from the referee. The chaser would be forced to watch his target closely. The resultant free-kick could promote quick counter-attacks against a retreating chase line. The lessening of high balls as a strategy would not only likely result in more running rugby from the attacking side but also more counter-attacking from fair catches. And as a side issue, the lessening of high kicks as an attacking option would remove this ridiculous ruck conga and Messi-style foot control of the ball from scrum-halves seeking protection before they hoist another one high.
The downside is probably that the kicking game could become uniquely territorial and ping-pong-like. But we’d take that over the ugly mid-air challenges currently blighting the game and the players. As with tackle area suggestions, we welcome thoughts below.
The hits start to come now
One down, how many to go? Sean O’Brien’s World Cup is unfortunately over before it has begun, while Mako Vunipola’s chances are slimmer than they would normally be. David Pocock is staking his whole season on getting a niggle right in time for September. A whole phalanx of England players are knocking seven shades out of each other this coming Saturday, while the warm-up matches in August promise plenty of crunch.
This is that time. The time when dreams can be shattered before they have even really got going. When national coaches watch aghast as star players and key roles in game plan for a tournament are erased. When hopes can be instantly extinguished. Keep an eye on the injury lists for the next three months, people. A World Cup’s pivotal moment for a team could be before the tournament even starts.
Too much double-dating
Rugby’s schedulers and marketeers are not doing the game many favours with this new calendar shift. As if shoveling the Premiership final out to June and having it on the same day as the Champions League Final, the Derby, the opening skirmishes of the Cricket World Cup and Roland Garros wasn’t silly enough, next year the extended calendar means the Premiership final will be on during Wimbledon, soccer’s European Championship and Royal Ascot.
It used to be in May. Granted, that meant a battle for supremacy with the end of the Premier League, but that is often done and dusted by early May anyway – this year’s title race was an exception.
It also used to be in or around half-term week, well before exams, and in its own space in the calendar among other winter sports’ season-ends. Not in the middle of the summer sport relaxation time.
We don’t like it. We can’t see the benefits. And with Europe having already been conquered, we’re kind of over it. If it wasn’t for the prospect of Exeter achieving their goal at last…
Loose Pass compiled by Lawrence Nolan