Re: Cannonball tackles : Wed May 27, 2015 4:54 pm  

LifeLongHKRFan wrote:

Don't worry he was found not guilty anyway so not an issue. (cue the outrage from the Wigan fans)

No outrage from me, but if a Wigan player had made that tackle, Mr Sadsacks would have been in full neck vein straining, mouth frothing fury...

For the record, i absolutely hate this type of tackle.

Re: Cannonball tackles : Wed May 27, 2015 8:08 pm  

I'm lost for words by the disciplinary panel and their total lack of regard for player welfare. We were on the right track by banning Chase for 7 games for this kind of tackle. Similar tackles receive nothing so Salford fans are right to be angry. Why is it that only their player got a big ban for this? Are bans based solely on injuries now? Henderson's tackle had a huge potential for injury and it was only down to luck that Bateman wasn't injured. I do wonder if Bateman would have stayed down, if Henderson would have walked. If Bateman was injured for months, I wonder whether Henderson would then get a ban. We're back to the situation of letting a player suffer a serious injury before taking any action.

It's at least the third time this season the RFL have done this. The one game ban handed out to Sam Powell for his chicken wing on Crabtree and the one game ban for James Green's shoulder charge on Burns were woefully inadequate. Big bans would stop players being so reckless. At the minute there's no deterrent. Refs have gone back to being scared on showing yellow cards and issuing immediate sanctions. Even if the RFL do ban, it's usually only one game, which is hardly a deterrent in a 30+ game season.

Re: Cannonball tackles : Fri May 29, 2015 11:53 am  

I honestly don't think this is as big an issue across the game as is being made out. People are moaning about tackles that aren't even cannonball tackles these days. Just because someone comes in third man to the legs doesn't mean it's a bad tackle. What's doing my head in now is people moaning about them as if they're a new thing or a worse problem than ever before when i don't think it is particularly. I think it's been there a long time. Maybe refs are taking too long to call "held" when a tackle is complete or isn't penalising a team for tackling a man or taking him to ground after "held" is called and people are seeing a third man leg tackle and remembering incidents that were bad but actually dissimilar.

I was saddened when the shoulder charge was banned, it's taken away a hugely entertaining element to the sport and you only have to look at what a player does when he runs in with the ball into defenders and see what they're doing every hit-up...shoulder charging the defenders! What's the difference? None! Just that he has the ball tucked under his arm. The shoulder charge to the head or late was already outlawed and that was enough.

I honestly think fans and the media are getting overly-touchy or soft with our game. A trend is starting where in 25 years time this sport will resemble touch rugby because people's over the top outrage at "foul play".

Fair enough, a bad tackle is a bad tackle...deal with them and let's move on. But there is too much cry for things that aren't as bad as is being made out these days.

Re: Cannonball tackles : Fri May 29, 2015 1:08 pm  

BuckleyStreetWire wrote:

I honestly don't think this is as big an issue across the game as is being made out. People are moaning about tackles that aren't even cannonball tackles these days.

We're moaning about tackles that hit, with force, the standing leg(s) of ball carriers that are held upright by other defenders.
They are dangerous in the same way as tackles on the standing leg of a kicker is dangerous.
They are also unnecessary. The game will not suffer in the slightest by the elimination of these tackles. As the same result can be obtained through different means.

Unfortunately, the consequence of the tackle (ie an injury) seems to lead to punishment from the authorities rather than the tackle itself.

Re: Cannonball tackles : Fri May 29, 2015 2:12 pm  

But most of the ones being moaned about aren't bad tackles at all. I am no fan of Wigan at all but i've read that two incidences have been moaned at in this thread both by Powell and there was nowt up with either of them...one of them was penalised for being after "held" was called and that was it. But even ones to the standing legs, with force, are fine as long as it's at the back of the leg where the leg can bend and flow with the tackle or arms are wrapped around the legs.

Fair enough the ones targeting the joint from the side or the front are the bad ones (as the leg doesn't bend sideways or forwards at the knee) and medial/lateral or cruciate ligament damage can result but they are really very few and far between in and people are bemoaning tackles that are perfectly fine at the moment in my opinion. I think it's just a bit "flavour of the month" to be picking this thing out at the moment.

Re: Cannonball tackles : Fri May 29, 2015 2:47 pm  

BuckleyStreetWire wrote:

But most of the ones being moaned about aren't bad tackles at all. I am no fan of Wigan at all but i've read that two incidences have been moaned at in this thread both by Powell and there was nowt up with either of them...one of them was penalised for being after "held" was called and that was it. But even ones to the standing legs, with force, are fine as long as it's at the back of the leg where the leg can bend and flow with the tackle or arms are wrapped around the legs.

Fair enough the ones targeting the joint from the side or the front are the bad ones (as the leg doesn't bend sideways or forwards at the knee) and medial/lateral or cruciate ligament damage can result but they are really very few and far between in and people are bemoaning tackles that are perfectly fine at the moment in my opinion. I think it's just a bit "flavour of the month" to be picking this thing out at the moment.

But those tackles aren't "fine". You're running the risk of serious injury. There is no need whatsoever for any force to be applied when a player is already held upright. All the "3rd Man" needs to do is wrap his arms around and let the other 2 effectively tip the ball carrier over.

There is no need for force to be applied. When there is, it is a very fine line (effectively luck) that the ball carrier isn't injured. In exactly the same way as a kickers standing leg is off limits.

There is no downside to the game, it won't miss anything at all, through getting rid of these tackles. There is no loss of spectacle at all and we're saving players from risk of injury.

There are things the refs can do around the held call but that still doesn't excuse defenders taking unnecessary risks with the ball carriers safety.

The game is quite rightly getting nervous over different tackles and techniques. It should be. The players are incredibly, massively faster, stronger, fitter and more powerful than ever before. Add in the full time nature of the game giving time to practice and think about different techniques (plus the faster, fitter players now being able to perform them compared to previously) and you get these techniques that are relatively new.

The forces in tackles are massively bigger than before, just listen to the impacts when Peacock was mic'd up on the BBC, or just talk to any of the conditioners or analysts who look at the GPS data. This means we have to be more careful around what the players do to each other.

I was disappointed to see the end of the shoulder charge and was against it at the time. But I can see why it was got rid of. The number and force of impacts the players withstand are huge and unfortunately many of the players utilising the shoulder charge were doing it recklessly.

But this type of tackle is relatively easy to get rid of and has no downside to the game at all. It's win win. Stop potentially serious injury and we don't lose anything. All it needs are a few red cards and players will stop doing it and coaches will stop coaching their team to do it. They'll find a safer way to bring players down.

Re: Cannonball tackles : Sat May 30, 2015 10:00 am  

Saddened! wrote:

Contentious one that. I'm with you, he was clearly attempting to get his arm over and around Myler to get the offload away and the impact was completely accidental. They must have deemed it reckless however, as the contact was pretty severe.

The panels are always a sham. You'll get Phil Clarke's brother and father on there when a Wigan player is up before a big game for example.

The thing about Colin is - and anyone who knows him personally or worked alongside him will tell you this - he's the most BIASED, one-eyed pie-eater the great lord almighty has EVER placed upon the good earth. Worse still - he HATES Saints with a passion (personally I think he's still suffering from PTSD from the days when Alex Murphy was coaching the club).

Me and him would regularly chat about the weekend's games after he dropped off one of his reconditioned hydraulic pumps or motor rewinds (which were uniformly godawful ) or made a pickup. If Saints had turned Wigan over in the derby I'd first ask him which players he thought won the match and then gleefully stand back and watch as he collapsed into paroxysms of coughing and choking.

"Something caught in your throat, Col?"

He'd just grimace, his face the colour of ivory and glistening with sweat - like he'd just passed a kidney stone the size of a grape.

It's impossible not to like Colin - in a comedy rogue kind of way. But seriously, he's the LAST person I'd want to see on a tribunal involving a Wigan player (an opinion I often shared with him evoking the usual wink and flash of his pearly whites). I'm not saying the guy's corrupt. He just GENUINELY BELIEVES every Wiganer hauled before the beak is the wounded victim of an outrageous slur against his character by jealous rivals, whilst players from other clubs are demonstrable villains who must be punished with the full weight of the sport.

Re: Cannonball tackles : Sat May 30, 2015 11:27 pm  

Him wrote:

Jesus H. We know the tackle happened. It's the rest of your feckwitted rant that's the issue.

Exactly the technique I stated earlier. Go for the ribs with good shoulder contact. Not illegal but will hurt an opponent. It's been done for years but nobody has complained of it until last few years after all the fuss about cannonball tackling kicked off. A proper cannonball putting undue force on the knee joint is rightly illegal but the tackle in the youtube clip isn't.