I said 'permanent injury'. I'm not saying there's no risk, but there's risk in almost every tackle. I've broken a clavicle, hand, several fingers, a couple of ribs, an ankle, split my eye, torn my ear and lost teeth playing Rugby League, not to mention the dozens of muscular, ligament and tendon injuries - not one of which resulted from a shoulder charge, and I've been on the end of (and handed out) a few.

Attacks the head are entirely unacceptable, and if for some reason it's felt that risk has somehow suddenly increased after 113 years of RL, increase the penalties proportionately.


Absolutely agree. Players need to learn restraint and control when they see an opportunity for a big shot. Do it right or face the consequences.


If those were the rules, yes.

A broken jaw is a permanent injury. A concussion is a permanent injury. You live with the effects of those injuries for ever.

And nobody is saying the risks have suddenly increased (but improvements in fitness, as well as strength and conditioning coaching have like seen more force in these collisions, and that’s only going one way) its that over time the responsibilities and expectations have changed. The RFL cannot even look like they aren’t clamping down 100% on, not only players making contact with the head, but players being reckless as to whether they do.

So at the moment we are seeing about 2 players a week banned for upwards of 10 games, how long can that last? And if the draconian bans do what we want and stop people attempting them, whats the difference between that and banning them?

I would have preferred it if they kept it. A good shoulder charge is one of the more spectacular plays in the game and I think it diminishes the spectacle of the game a little without them.

Personally I think game is running scared due a class action industrial injury lawsuit being filed in the US from a large group of former NFL players and their families relating to brain injuries sustained due to multiple concussive hits over their careers. The NFL have since introduced rule changes such as banning helmet to helmet hits and shortening kick offs which are seen by many as actions which reduce the risk of these types of injuries.

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.

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?