I'm confused. Is the head sacred? Or not? There's calls to make the NRL playmakers the equivalent of Hindu's sacred cows, but what about the head?
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On the weekend after a study had revealed two former NRL players had been diagnosed with chronic traumatic encephalopathy, it might've been a good time to make it so.
They've made it so in the AFL to the point where touching someone on the shoulder is considered high contact.
Gone are the days of the coathanger stopping a player in their Adidas tracks.
While the NRL's a different beast, it's probably a good idea for rugby league to at least take a step in that direction.
A couple of examples of how jump out at you.
The first was Peni Terepo's swinging arm that left Canberra Raiders winger Jordan Rapana lying on the ground wondering why there was blood gushing from his freshly broken nose.
It didn't take 15 super slo-mo replays to tell the Parramatta prop had got him high. It was pretty obvious.
It was the perfect chance for the NRL to take a stand. But when the referee called Terepo out for a chat, the chance was lost.
The referee's crossed arms and the words, "You're on report", said it all - We'll leave it to someone else to do it.
That fell to the match review committee. Three weeks. Job done. Move on.
The moment was lost. But it could've been a line-in-the-sand moment. You hit someone in the head, then you're going to watch the rest of the match from the sheds.
It would've sent more than just a message of avoiding hitting blokes in the head, but a more important one of, "We're protecting you players as best we can".
Accidents will always happen, but there's nothing like feeling you've let your teammates down to help ensure the next tackle's well below the previously broken nose.
It also sends a message to the lawyers plotting their class actions against the code.
We do take concussion seriously. We do take CTE seriously. We're not negligent. We're doing everything we can.
Oh well, now there's a crackdown in place maybe that'll be fixed up.
The only problem with a crackdown is the sports gods have a wicked sense of humour. And it's an ironic one. Some might say spiteful.
You can bet your bottom dollar (or your top if you prefer) the teams who benefited from the lack of a crackdown pre-crackdown won't be the ones to suffer now a crackdown's in place.
It'll be the teams who suffered who will suffer some more. That means you, you loyal Raiders fans.
Probably be Rapana who gets his marching orders just to make the irony complete. That's just the way things work.
And the second example that could've been set? Well that falls to Tariq Sims.
In a nice piece of synchronicity he'll be running out for St George Illawarra against the Green Machine in Wollongong when the Raiders' season kicks back into gear next weekend.
The NRL buried the lead when it came to Sims.
Faced with a decision in defence - stay in the line or jump out for the intercept - they've made the wrong call and a chance to ram home the whole head is sacrosanct went begging again.
There wasn't much wrong with Sims' tackle. It wasn't overly late - except when that super slo-mo kicks in to make it look like an eternity has passed between ball leaving and the hit - he wrapped the arms to tackle and it wasn't a shoulder charge.
The only problem was he copped North Queensland half Michael Morgan in the head. Left him stunned and wondering which way it was to the Great Barrier Reef.
That's how Sims' charge should been framed. It's the tackler's responsibility to avoid the head.
Instead it was all about protecting playmakers. Don't get me wrong, that's a noble enough cause.
But Sims' hit didn't fall into the category of a late, cheap shot. He was simply doing his job.
Certainly didn't deserve to be suspended from that point of view.
But if you frame it around protecting the head, then Sims had to go.
And the NRL can beat their drum again. We do take concussion seriously. We do take CTE seriously. We're not negligent. We're doing everything we can.
Oh well, maybe next time.
Nothing to see here
I had this thought. What does the impending NRL and AFL class action mean for local sport?
Same hits, same potential injuries, but also potentially less of everything - resources, expertise, scrutiny, and more importantly money.
If a class action was successful at the elite level would it move on and set its sights on lower levels as well?
It could have far greater consequences coz less money means more chance of going broke.
So I thought I'd get a lawyer son, thought I'd get a real good one. One that specialises in sport.
"It might. The problem is that it's only the high-level elite athletes that are party to this latest class action because they can go after the big sports - the AFL, the NRL," Snedden Hall and Gallop special counsel Allistar Twigg told The Canberra Times.
"They've got deep pockets and they are more likely to have knowledge that can be tended as evidence that they really knew that there were serious problems with concussion and they failed to take all the necessary steps.
"The further down the food chain you get the more the sports are run by volunteers ... so the possibility of proving negligence, which is what you really want to be looking to do, is greater at the higher levels, the more elite sporting levels."