The tackle on Paasi was a copybook tackle on a big player to stop his momentum & get him to the deck. Tackling around the legs is how all kids were told to tackle when they started out. No-one, apart from Wilkin, from what I have seen, claimed it was career ending. Just repeated blindly by self-pitying fans.

Which is ironic really given that rather than question their own teams tackling techniques when they've received ban after ban, they've tried to claim some sort of conspiracy.

It's just not. Where has this idea come from? If you look at the physics involved, throwing his shoulder and all his body weight into the planted knee, opposite the direction he's running from, it can only result in injury. A 'copybook' tackle on the lower legs is where you place your head behind the knees and use your hands to grab the legs, taking the player down using his own momentum, so he falls in the direction he's running. Players aren't taught to drop their body weight and drive their shoulder through the knee joint at all.

If players started tackling like that, there would be horrific consequences. I'm convinced most people on here haven't even seen the tackles, the responses on here are so childish. I understand the Leigh fans being defensive, but I'm not talking about bans here, I've already said it''s not against the current rules. But there's an ethical angle to it, most players wouldn't tackle like that due to how likely it is to cause injury.

Planted knee FFS he was full tilt for the line, stop clutching at straws. You had the position and ball to have won handsomely, you didn’t because the opposition tackled like their life’s depended on it, and fairly, plus you are boring to watch these days

The initial diagnosis was 'severe damage to ACL, MCL and all associated tissues'. Wellens described his knee as 'blown to smithereens'. Walmsley is MCL. Hopefully the injuries won't be as bad as feared, but the signs aren't good.

I can't quickly find a video of the tackle, but my recollection is Paasi is storming towards the line. A leigh player takes him front on to clamp the ball; it is not physically possible for Asiata to tackle him any other way than from the side. First contact is with the thigh, not the knee. Paasi is still moving forwards, though it is possible/likely his foot was on the ground at the time of impact. I was a right shoulder tackler, so in a side tackle from that side, my head would have been in front of the legs. If it was the other side, my head would have been behind.

Im hoping St Helens dish out the same kind of tackles come September when they play Leigh. However, if they do and there are some injuries, i can see the meltdown on here already about how the tackles are illegal and the St Helens players who commited them should be banned for 44 years.

#TheRflIsBent

Saints should wheel out Paasi in his wheelchair/hospital bed to give the brave boys in the Red Vee a pre-match Churchillian speech. That'll put the fear of God in the pretenders from the poor part of Wigan.

Saints SHOULD'VE been down to 12 men with that late challenge on Reynolds. That was worse than Shorrocks on Lewis.
Stop moaning, and move on.

What is with these posts? No one is suggesting it altered the game. No one is crying over the result and no one is asking for Asiata to be banned either... It's the two mangled knee joints that is the concern. I hope he looks at the tackles himself and realises he's done wrong and doesn't do it to anyone else.

Accepting defeat is so hard for some.

The level of childishness on here is remarkable. If you're not 13 and sing behind your phone screen, you're pathetic.

Paul Wellenshttps://www.loverugbyleague.com/post/st-helens-suffer-two-huge-season-ending-injuries-paul-wellens-calls-out-governing-bodys-failure-to-protect-players-following-controversial-tacklesrl

What a shizer comment.

Now, I don't honestly care about punishing Asiata. He's cynically used a dangerous technique to try to win the game for his team. As it's technically not outside of the rules, it's hard to see any just punishment there. The rules do need to be clarified however and tackles like that attacking knee joints with the shoulder have to be made illegal moving forward. He's single handedly decimated a team in one game. Imagine if the whole league started doing it? It'd be an unmanageable bloodbath.