Lets say thats one person badly injured by a shoulder charge then. How many players are badly injured by non shoulder charges? Phil Clarke broke his neck in a tackle that looked like a regular tackle that you see all the time. My point is that there was no common link between bad injuries and shoulder charges, not that i can remember anyway. Some of the greatest videos on youtube are of shoulder charges. The fans loved nothing better than seeing somebody get smashed by a big shoulder, especially if it was an opposition player who had been dishing it out, see David Kidwell on Willie Mason -a great hit that would result in him being banned today.

I have to say I'm with the Enforcer on this one. In truth, I've never really seen how 'attempting to wrap the arm round' which is all it takes to comply with the laws of the game has any bearing on the force of impact anyway. Many players are in favour of the shoulder charge too and were quite vocal in their opposition to its banning at the time of it being outlawed.

If I remember rightly the ruling was brought in because it was felt there were risks associated with direct contact with the head but surely the same can be said for any tackling technique if done incorrectly.

There is a point where the game becomes 'over sanitised'. I don't think we're at that level yet necessarily but continued incremental changes of this nature would definitely have us heading that way.

Ultimately, part of the attraction of any contact sport is, by definition, determined by the amount and nature of the contract. Boxing fans, for example, would soon lose interest if the fighters were only allowed to slap. RL is subject to the same diminishing returns. Remove the big hits and you remove part of the attraction. I think it's fair to say we'd all agree on that. The subjective part is how far down that track each individual is prepared to go before it starts to affect their enjoyment of, and interest in, the sport.

I’m all for the shoulder charge coming back; let’s be honest most of the time it failed miserably but when it came off it wasn’t half a belter.

Politics? Really?

I still don’t see how reintroducing mass brawls, mud baths, and Kelvin Skerret helps in anyway crowds for RL.

spear tackle

There's absolutely no way we'll go back to the 'era of the biff, whether it was a bit of a myth or the reality. People might complain about the game becoming a bit sanitised but you only have to read the horror stories of people who have played contact sports and suffered multiple concussions to understand why all sports are taking a no nonsense approach to anything that could cause a serious head injury. If the shoulder charge was still legal imagine how many players would go off for concussion assessments during games.

It might not be as exciting but lets be honest, a shoulder charge is a very poor tackle technique, generally doesn't do what most coaches want a defender to do these days (wrap the ball and control the tackle) and increases the risk of the defender getting injured too.

Yes, a good scrap can be exciting in a game but I don't think Super League has gone down the route of a punch being a mandatory red card as someone suggested earlier in the thread. I don't even think it's a mandatory sin bin over here like in the NRL.

Either way, the sport is still tough without shoulder charges, it's still exciting without punch ups and thuggery. From the lowest level right up to the top the best thing about rugby league is the excitement generated from good attacking rugby and tough players (not dirty ones).

Dwindling crowds have more to do with rugby league's inability to make itself relevant to people, particularly young people, at a time when there are so many other things (and not just sports) that are trying to grab their attention. The sport isn't competing well enough for the money available, we've lost quality players from Super League and they haven't really been replaced and the whole sport just seems to be clinging on and surviving because it's struggling to generate that 'must watch' buzz that other sports or events can create. A fight in every game won't improve any of that. In fact often when a fight happens in a game it just makes it stop start and prevents any real rugby from happening.

for me that is the biggest issue with the game, too much stop/start from too many penalties - the stop whilst hundreds (or what seems like anyway) water carriers run on the pitch at every scrum, even on cold days and then take forever to get off the pitch. The minutes taken during drop outs and the interminable replays for video ref decisions looking at it five times from every angle when it obvious from the first view what the decision is (is it me or do some videos refs give the impression that they are looking for a reason, any reason, to overturn the on field decision).


It kills the excitement when a game gets going only to grind to a halt for any of the above and all momentum drains away.

Because they were fun, the fans loved it! If you dont remember standing in the freezing cold on a dismal damp December Sunday afternoon seeing Skerrett start a mass brawl and then looking as innocent as a baby when called out by the ref then you've never lived. Those were the days of two sets of players getting stuck into one another and softening each other up. Nowadays everything is about stats instead of the good old fashioned biff.

So it wasnt a shoulder charge then.

So far not one example of a shoulder charge causing serious injury so why was it banned?

Don't know how we have got onto this tangent, but the amount of people on here who don't understand the rugby league shoulder charge rule is astounding. Clue: it isn't the same as the union one, most of your favourite old big hits are still legal

I'm often reminded of the 'cult' movie 'Slapshot' starring Paul Newman. It was a 'bit of the biff' that brought the crowds and the fans both in the film and at the box office ......................that ultimately created a huge cult status for that film.

In days of old, at Wigan v Saints derby matches. If there wasn't a punch up during the first scrum or the first10 minutes the crowd thought they weren't being serious.

As a side note. We had one enforcer who as far as I know never got sent off - Brian McTigue. A ballplayer [i'excellence'[/i and one who the Ozzies feared on the field in more ways than one.

Quote: Grimmy "Don't know how we have got onto this tangent, but the amount of people on here who don't understand the rugby league shoulder charge rule is astounding. Clue I look forward to more of this then https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igIOEGB ... verified=1

Quote: Grimmy "Don't know how we have got onto this tangent, but the amount of people on here who don't understand the rugby league shoulder charge rule is astounding. Clue I look forward to more of this then https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igIOEGB ... verified=1

When the ginger one was criticised for his lack of aggression he tried to ramp up that part of his game and became a penalty machine instead.

Very true that, the enforcer role was not faz’s game or style. He was giving 4/5 away a game at one point. Aggression is natural in my opinion and difficult to coach into someone unless you have a long run at it like waney did.

I remember cowie thinking he was some sort of enforcer. Until foggy made a mess of him. Cowie never recovered from that and faded into obscurity soon after

About the same time as fogarty faded into obscurity as well