In Australia the NRL (National Rugby League) is currently in rather controversial waters. The game over the past years has gotten harsher on excessive forceful contact and other infringements. The example I will be putting forward will be on the excessive forceful contact aspect. Back in 2012, the shoulder charge was banned. What is a shoulder charge? It's when a player leads with their should to make a tackle and makes first contact with it. Examples
here,
here and a very sad story of one
here. This one is a no brainer, this tactic has so much force it killed a man by rupturing an artery. Next came the "crusher" tackle infringement. This is when a player puts pressure on the neck of another player when making a tackle, example
here. This one is also fair because a player a few years ago became
quadriplegic after being tackled with forceful pressure on the back of the neck. These crackdowns are all fair and I personally have no issue with it, but this crackdown as eventually ended up to the current fiasco plaguing the game.
Now ANY forceful contact to the head is immediately put on report (the player goes in front of a judiciary and can be penalized with a fine and/or match bans) and the player is sent to the bin (10 minute timeout). Seems like just another safety measure to save lives/quality of lives right? Not exactly. Currently the NRL season is in it's Magic Round where all weekly games are played relatively close after each other at the same stadium, so it's a big event with a lot of eyes on it. There has been rumbling of officials about to crack down hard on excessive force after a recent fiasco where they
turned a blind eye to obvious infringements, resulting in the standing down of the officials of that game. In the previous linked video, there is two infringements. First one is the contact with the head and the second one is leading with the knees. Important to remember that first player who was the victim of the first infringement of being hit in the head. A debate took place on a footy talk show about this incident where a presenter
put forward that the players running style itself is the issue, not the contact with the head. A very good point.
Now back to the Magic Round, after officials have announced that ANY forceful contact with the head results in being put on report and put in the bin.
The Official Magic Round Sin Bin Counter (10 minute timeout)
- Tex Hoy
- Joe Ofahengaue
- Lachlan Fitzgibbon
- Moses Mbye
- Tyson Gamble
- Jordan Riki
- Josh Schuster
- Lachlan Croker
- Jack Wighton
- Jaydn Su'A
- Sitili Tupouniua
- Lachlan Burr
The Official Magic Round Send Off Counter (Player sent off for entire game)
- Josh Papalii
Only 5 out of 8 games has been played in total. Safe to say, the crackdown is in effect. But number #12 for the sin bin counter is what I want to focus on. Remember the video I linked where refs turned a blind eye and a talk show debate happened? Low and behold, the same player who was being discussed is involved in this fiasco as well.
Here a player is sent off for forceful contact with the head. Look at how low he gets himself, falling into a tackle which with this crackdown, obviously results in a player being sent off thus gaining an advantage. Was it intentional? Probably not, I doubt someone intentionally wants to get decapitated, but the onus is completely on the ball carrier for this high contact. Other people have put it rather comically,
"Just discovered a brand new winning strategy. All players on attack must bear crawl at all times. No tackles allowed. Guaranteed tries."
"the irony will be that the number of head injuries will increase as teams realize that ducking your head into cunts shoulders is a legitimate tactic"
"for real though what is stopping sides training their players to make contact with the opponents shoulder? lead with the head, free sin bin"
The game is now in state where it can reward players who put themselves in danger.
Anyway this is more of a rant on how shit the game currently is, but I am also curious of other scenarios where a sport rule implementation has had unintentional or controversial results.