Words cannot describe how thoroughly p*ssed off and downheartened by this moronic decision I am. Been losing interest in the regular season for a few years and the RFL decide to make our game more repetitive and less interesting. While there's a lot more to the game, 'big hits'are something most of us love.

Pandering to the NRL and RLIF and actually paying attention to those morons in the media who've never even played, and also senile idiots like Stevo - how the hell is that doing our game any good?

Where is the justification for this? The facts, figures and stats showing how often the shoulder charge is used, and the presumably devastating effect the it has had on hundreds of players down the years? How many players have been seriously and/or permanently injured or hospitalised down the years? And if not, why change the bloody rule at all!??

Shoulder charges are not the problem. Attacking people's heads is the problem. The two are not the same thing. RL is often described as repetitive and this decision has just removed one of the most stirring sights in the sport.

Blake Solly and the rest of the idiots involved in this decision - p*ss off to tiddlywinks where you might just fit in. In fact, just p*ss off.

They just keep chipping away and chipping a little bit more.

Will attacking players still be able to lead with the shoulder?

It is effectively the same movement and (now that the defender has to wrap his arms) will increase the risk of seriously hurting the defender.

Wow the mock outrage over this is quite remarkable, even by RL standards. Rarely see a shoulder charge in games these days anyway.

Spot on. I got the abacus out earlier, and worked out that in the NRL last year there was a total of 72 shoulder tackles, meaning an average of 0.3 per game. Presuming we interpret the law in the same way they did in the All Stars game, it will be perfectly permissible to make contact purely with the shoulder, providing an attempt is made to put the arms in a tackling position, as per Inglis.

At the end of the day an independent report recommended the practice was banned. Had the governing bodies ignored this advice and a player became seriously injured it would without doubt lead to litigation on the grounds of negligence, duty of care etc.

Absolute joke. As a supporter i love seeing a big hit. It gets the fans going and the players love it, it can change the momentum of a game. For examle on Sunday, Pickersgill gave Mika a hit, next time Pickersgill got the ball Mika shoulder charged him and absolutely skittled him forcing a knock on. Every single player ran in to pat him on the head all geed up, the fans loved it, nothing dangerous about it.. so ffs RFL why why why get rid of it. As already stated its the bans for contact with the head that need sorting and would have been the logical decision. On twitter the players are pretty upset about it and as Cory Patterson put it 'for someone who has never played the game to make this decision is disappointing'. Another player said 'the players know the risk every time we go on the pitch'. The ironic and infuriating thing is that when trying to enforce this new ruling the bans for committing a shoulder charge 'offence' will probably be similar to the recent ones given for contact with the head. The definition of incompetent decision making, no bottle or common sense.

To be fair to the RFL it sounds like they tried to keep it in. Looks like it's gone down well with the players. Only way they could have created more of an outrage is by not paying them anymore.

Even with the players being bigger, running faster and harder, even playing on plastic pitches

As Nobby says bend you back and get your timing right and you can smash someone just make sure you get your arms round them instead of tackling with you back half turned like a house.

Poor decision, gimme a refund on my tickets if you are going to change the rules of the game after I buy them

There's rarely a kick-off or a goal-line drop-out in an average game. Shall we get rid of them because they rarely happen? What a stupid thing to say.

The problem with that of course is that the figures are blatantly untrue.

To accept this disney land claim of 0.3 shoulder charges a game is to let-on that you've never seen a game of league before, or don't understand what a shoulder charge is. It's profoundly untrue. Watch a Roosters game, Jared Waerea-Hargreaves makes a couple of shoulder cahrges a game. Watch a Warriors game, Ben Matulino would make a few a game.

I don't think I've ever in my life seen a full game of rugby league that was void of a shoulder charge. And yet, going off the figures the NRL wheeled out, the majority of rugby league games do not include a single shoulder charge. And this is why I claim the figures were sexed up, that whoever was responsible for the study has blundered intentionally or out of serious stupidity.

0.3 shoulder charges a game. I ask you all to think on that figure for a moment. That means that 63% + of rugby league games have not one single shoulder charge. NOT ONE



I'm repeating myself but anyone who has watched the game will know why, because their study is void, it's wrong, it's bullshine. The sport of rugby league has banned shoulder charges on the back of a bunk study!

I can prove to you that their study is out by miles. That their figures are a fantasy. That there are hundreds of shoulder charges each year. That they occur several times a game and are far from the freak occurrence that's being hinted at. In fact, they're an integral element of the game. The issue seems to be that people only count shoulder charges as shoulder charges if its a 1-on-1 challenge.

For anyone who wants to dispute my claim that their figures are nonsense, search "16 Minutes SAVAGE Rugby League tackles" on a popular video website. Now I've just watched that through and of the 2012 NRL tackles in the video, [u84 of them were shoulder charges[/u, either 1-on-1 challenges or a 2nd or 3rd man in the tackle put his shoulder in.

Now, keep in mind that's a YT video and what gets in videos like those is only the biggest and the best. A good hundred more shoulder charges, minimum, were omitted. And that's indisputable, because I made that video, so I know.

Therefore, the independent report ought to have been dismissed by the NRL and every other organisation, and it should be dismissed by League fans, because the figures are bogus. That's the bottom line. 0.3 shoulder charges a game is a made-up stat that doesn't reflect reality in anyway.

And I'm still, after all this time, waiting on the "It's litigation!" crowd to explain to me how rugby union is getting away with keeping scrums. I must have asked a million times and no explanation has been offered. Why is union allowed to persist with scrums, they're more of a concussion risk than shoulder charges and players being paralysed and having their necks broken happens relatively frequently in the union scrum. Where is the litigation there.

I can sum the position up for you. It is accepted by all that the front row of a contested RU scrum is a highly dangerous environment and therefore if nobody screws up then you have no case even if injured.

And if you can show that somebody screwed up, and that this caused or contributed to your injury, then you are entitled to damages.

You think the example is a good one, but actually, it's not. There are millions of contested scrums where no significant injury is caused. There are ZERO shoulder tackles to the head where no injury is caused.

And since when are all shoulder charges to the head?

They are not. So your example is rubbish too.