i remember that happening, cos he dropped the ball, knowles again.

He didn't tear them. Scummy Knowles did. Regardless of our views on Cooper's contributions last season, I'm sure we all agree no player deserves this. Will Knowles be banned? It's a shame the perpetrator can't be banned as long as the victim.

As an aside, what's with the prevalence of arms round necks as players go to ground. Seem to be overlooked all the time. Grunt is one thing, but wrenching on necks another.

Genuine request here. Could someone please explain the hip drop tackle technique and what the player is doing deliberately amd illegally when carrying one out?

Don't want to get too much 'the game's gome soft', but RL has always been a game played on the edge, where injuries can be picked up, so I'm just curious about that fine line between a tackle being deliberately carried out with intent to injure.

The defender swings round the back of the player being tackled and uses his lower half weight (hence the hip 'drop') to force the attacking players legs to buckle due to weight behind them. The problem is that the attacking players leg/s can get trapped as they buckle. It's useful for bringing a player to the floor quickly, since they clamped down on cannonball tackles a while back. They can still result in nasty injuries though.

EDIT: I'm not sure of the 'illegality' issue as I haven't seen the exact guidance on what's acceptable and what is not.

I'll have a go, but im in a rush.

It started with Rob Parker for us many moons ago.

Essentially, picture someone trying to get on your back for a piggy back and failing.

They fall to thr floor, they have two way, one they fall keeping hold of you(you're now carrying their weight on your upper body,) and their body falls onto your legs and ankles behind, causing you ankle to bend and knee ligaments to go with it.

Thats roughly what philbin did on Saturday.

Option two is similar, the Knowles on cooper (an others) that he has gone off the side still goy hold of the upper body and gone to the floor, pulling him to the side, the centre of gravity is below his knee but something has to give so his knee bends inwards/sideways and ligaments get torn.

Have a look at the two explanations, and watch the Cooper vid, watch knowles body a couple of times then watch coops knee, then try and flex your knee in that direction

Ok, thanks.

Isn't any multiple player tackle going to be prone to injuries though?.. for example, if an attacking player is standing in the tackle, as Cooper was, and is dragging defenders with him on a surging run, then simply by the laws of physics there is a possibility that a dragged along defender may end up falling unintentionally?

I guess the job of the match officials and disciplinary committee is to decide in whether a player is acting deliberately in injuring a player?

The tackler grabs onto the player and deliberately lifts their feet in order to try and drag the player to the floor, using their own weight.

The problem is that weight, usually ed around the tackler's hip, drops onto the ball carrier's legs. Or in Knowles' case, the side of the knee.

When the player leaves the ground by picking their feet up, they no longer have control of the tackle, giving the technique a high chance of injury.

I'll.comr back to this after the gym. I did think this on Friday with the bachelor sin binning

Hip drop tackle is basically when a tackler falls with all his weight on to the tackled players lower limbs bringing him down in the process.

Cooper had beaten the 3 tacklers with a great surging run. Knowles had hold of him but I presume knew he was beaten (disciplinary panel to decide) and Cooper was through in a potential offloading position so fell on to back of legs with weight causing his legs to buckle and bringing him down.

Explaining was never one of my greatest traits.

I guess it's pretty much down to personal interpretation of the incident - I think Lussick doesn't help the situation, because he comes in from the side and leaves Knowles with a very limited scope for where he can go and, legally, his only option is to let Cooper go, but the natural instinct of a tackler will be the exact opposite of that.

I think he will have the book thrown at him, simply because of his record and that he has got himself a reputation, deservedly, through past misdemeanours, but in that Cooper incident, I honestly think he might have a reasonable argument that it wasn't intentional.

There's a video on nrl.com with the title "Key indicators of a hip drop tackle" (easily found via a search engine of your choice ) and with the description "Graham Annesley explains the key indicators referees and review officials are looking at when trying to classify a hip drop tackle". Which shows video examples of 'hip drop' and 'non hip drop' tackles (or at least the criteria which the Aussies are using).