My personal favourite

They should be legal until they hit the head, that's when current rules should take over.



The debate comes about because of instances like Bailey on Fa'asavlu and Puletua on Mounis.



Sometimes, not just with SCharges, contact with the head can happen and it not be an illegal challenge - ducking into the tackle, for instance.



In challenges similar to the ones named above, the ball carrier has run face first into a wall of shoulder belong to the defender who is reletively static.

There has to be [isome[/i repsonsibilty taken by the ball carrier for his own well being, hasn't there?



Allow shoulder charges, don't allow high tackles.

No, they're not. They're the same as most other injuries in that in most cases they'll heal. A broken jaw will usually heal unless there are complications. Concussion will usually disappear after a few days or weeks. Only the most severe examples of each will have permanent effects. But again, each tackle runs the risk of an injury that could have permanent effects (just ask Kevin Ward). Should we therefore ban all contact?





But why now? Why is it suddenly a critical issue? Yes, ask a doctor and he'll tell you to ban it, or run a risk assessment and it'll come out as unacceptably dangerous. Just as sprinting into two sixteen-stone men who are doing their best to flatten you is in general.





Lengthy bans and hefty fines would soon have players thinking twice. And what we'd see is less of the attacks to the head (which are after all, the problem, not the 'shoulder charge' per se), whilst still permitting the more common shoulder-to-shoulder/body collision which does very little to no actual damage but looks fantastic and lifts both your team and the crowd.

As someone who has had a broken jaw, 3 times, I can tell you that isn’t true. Any break of the jaw will result in that bone being weaker forever. Any additional plating (which would happen in a bad break) leaves a big risk of infection and will generally need to be replaced multiple times if the patient is young and healthy. There is a nerve that runs through the jaw which controls the feeling to the mouth, any degradation in that nerve from either the break or subsequent surgery causes a loss of feeling and control over the mouth which gives difficulty eating and speaking.



The medical term for concussion is mild traumatic brain injury. A concussion is damage to the brain. Most people, from one concussion probably wouldn’t see any further health problems. But that damage is still there, and a particularly bad concussion will cause obvious immediate health issues, but the cumulative effect of multiple, even very minor concussions can have serious and life threatening effects. There are risks which are acceptable and those that arent.



Because Dr’s have given there opinion, and there really is no argument against it. We know that the shoulder charge is a risky play, we know the tackler has less control, and we know it poses an unacceptable risk of serious injury if performed incorrectly. We have had the NRL and RLIF ban it, that changes the context, it changes the argument from why should the game ban it, to how can the RFL justify not banning it when everyone else in the game accepts how unacceptable that risk is.



But the attacks to the head aren’t just attacks to the head. They are the results of your ‘acceptable’ shoulder charge gone wrong. I think we all agree that the shoulder charge, executed correctly and with no contact with the head doesn’t pose a risk. What does pose a risk is someone attempting a shoulder charge, intending to execute correctly with no contact with the head and getting it wrong. So if someone attempted a shoulder charge and got it wrong, as we are seeing fairly often, they would miss a huge amount of matches. In an environment where the reward is a big tackle and momentum change, but the risk is a red card and a 10-15 match ban I cant think of any coach who would do anything other than give any player a kick in the balls for even trying it

Most injuries will probably leave some reminder they were there. That doesn't make them a permanent injury.



The medical profession seems to think that most instances of concussion or bone breaks will heal without permanent problem. Yes, of course there are exceptions. That's good enough for me.



3 jaw breaks? You should stop rubbing people up the wrong way.







That last doctor I saw, for a broken metacarpal, told me Rugby League is dangerous and ill-advised. Most doctors will. Let's just ban the sport.





We're not seeing it fairly often, we're seeing isolated examples. A couple a season.



If a player goes for a big arm into the upper body and gets it wrong they can smash someone's throat or face. We see that at times as well. Shall we ban arms in the tackle?

But those permenant reminders leave scope for the victim to take action against the RFL. That might be good enough for you or me, but isnt likely to be good enough for a court.



Erm...





Most probably would, like they would boxing. But we don’t have a duty to eliminate risk, we have a duty to minimise it.

We saw two in the same week the week before last.

There are laws in place already to protect them from that. And i think the RFL have a good argument to say that a player tackling properly can reasonably be expect to be able to control the tackle enough to effect it without dangerous contact with the head.



I think most people would be happy to see the shoulder charge stay if we could find away of making sure the ones that went wrong were out of the game. I havent seen anyone propose anything to try and do that other than draconian bans on those who get them wrong, which as i said would have the same effect.

"But those permenant reminders leave scope for the victim to take action against the RFL. That might be good enough for you or me, but isnt likely to be good enough for a court"



Surely if it's written into a contract that there may be head trauma from accidental collisions that would negate any possibilities of a law suit... as from looking at twitter I've not seen one player in favour of the ban I'm sure the majority if not all would sign. Would still allow for lawsuits against players for intentional shots to the head

I'm missing them in the wcc.

I don't know whether it's me, but i just feel it's lacking a little the WCC. It's like the players are scared to put a big hit on each other. Might just be me though

I've done a pretty thorough search over the last few days, I've read Scientific journals, research reports and medical analysis. Appart from Rugby League I've studied reports from the GAA, IRB, NFL, NHL, AFL and anything from any form of contact/collision sport going back 25 years and as yet I can't find any real evidence to support this ban.



There's more medical and scientific evidence to support banning a copybook front on tackle than there is any other type of currently/previously legal form of contact. In fact in one GAA report they attribute 32% of injuries sustained from tackles to 'front on contact to the midriff area'.



I'm guessing that the NRL/RLIF are frantically trying to cobble together some spurious conclusion lead research data just in case they're ever required to substantiate their claims, because if it currently exists I can't find it.



No one is counter claiming that the forces in play from a shoulder charge aren't greater than those in a 'textbook' tackle but that doesn't automaticaly translate to more dangerous.

The first tackle after the kick off was a shoulder charge, it was not pulled up.

I think that's what makes me so mad - they've presented no evidence to back up the ban. It's based on firstly a massive media backlash to the Inglis hit on Dean Young last year, and our own media picking up that ball and blowing any high and reckless hits out of all proportion.



When Eddie, Stevo, the muppets on Backchat, and even most of our home-grown RL correspondents bang on about it for weeks and start demanding bans, the authorities will eventually respond. Precisely as happened in the NRL when their media did the same thing.



As we're seeing, the only people in favour are the suits at the top and the media. People who, for the most, have never pulled on a jersey in anger. Players, coaches and fans are overwhelmingly against it. Who the f*ck is this game for?