I think we can all agree on the need to keep players as safe as possible. Nobody wants to see degenerative brain disease (although again the causal link is very difficult to establish scientifically).

The question is how we go about it. To what extent is risk inherent in the game? Is it possible to reduce the risk to nil, and if not what is an acceptable level? This is a pragmatic approach.

Also we have the refereeing of said rules. Because they are over-complicated and too broad at the same time, games are frequently being spoiled due to interpretations.

Show me a game of under-armpit level tackling that looks anything like rugby league, or which is any way refereeable and I might change my view. It turns games into penalty-fests and the result a lottery. There were lots of academy games trialling this last year and they were pretty much horrendous. I also still saw some head knocks despite the new rules.

I have to say (somewhat grudgingly) that last nights WCC tended to support a lot of the points you've been making. Lots of excellent tackling technique on show and scarcely anything round the head. My big worry is that next year will be a completely different and far, far less watchable ball game. Memories of the Academy trial games last year still bring me out in hives.

Great points. It's impossible to mitigate the risk completely. Regardless of the rules around the tackle, if there is tackling of any sort in the game then there will always be head knocks. Changing the game to remove any chance of head knocks means no tackling of any sort. If that comes to pass, there'll be no need to worry about insurance costs.

I heard a professor on the radio the other day. He was of the view that letting children play contact rugby below the age of 18 is tantamount to child abuse.

And he may have a point. It might just be too dangerous to allow youngsters to play with full contact: but then is it more dangerous as adults when and if they do, without the technique being learned?

I suspect we need to scan all pro players brains when they start a career, look for any abnormalities or susceptibility (your brain basically rattles around inside a bony structure), and maybe regular / annual scans too. If we’re serious about the science we need to look at individuals as well as broad rules - e.g. it is possible Ward might have had susceptibility or maybe Gannon does. Brain scanning technology has come on so far in the last decade.

If you think about any changes that are made are on a spectrum, and the easiest to do is to do nothing and leave things as they are, and the hardest thing to do would be to ban tackling above the belly button, as they were originally going to do in union, then lowering the tackle height to the armpit seems an ok compromise. The trial games were definitely a mess, but the data from those games showed it did significantly reduce the number of head contacts and accelerations, which is the primary objective. But a lot of work and dialogue is going to have to happen by all involved in order to make it watchable.

The coaches seemed pretty optimistic that the changes would be positive in the long-term, prior to the trial, but they'll know it will be a huge task to adjust in time for next season. I just hope they've started incorporating it into their training sessions.

Clearly he meant rugby union.

Check his funding. Am absolutely sick of banal statements in particular anti scientific statements being passed off as facts.

Agree 100%. I'll leave it here. If that's the future it's bleak. If folk are happy to sacrifice the game in pursuit of a perfectly safe future (never achievable, by the way) then crack on. Well done on achieving utopia. A joyless utopia, but who cares, eh?

Pottery to Metallica Clueso…

Yes but I don’t accept it’s necessary to go to armpit and below, that’s the point.

This isn’t scientific. It’s a process of trying to find evidence that someone is right. They’re clutching at straws trying to build a case to reduce tackle height in the senior game. The academy games were literally a shambles and all you say is that players need to get used to it.

Not necessarily mutually exclusive, Jim.

Let's just have done with it and switch the game to Artificial Intelligence.
Leave it to the bots and no-one gets hurt.

Only just seen wilkins (and Carney to be fair) reaction to the Hull red, I don't always agree with or like how he comes over but he was spot on with his emotion and what he said. Carney calls it an existential threat to the game, he's not really one for hyperbole, he's exactly right, if that card is a sign of further things to come then the game becomes unwatchable.