Tom Johnstone his concussion was caused by banging his head on the floor I think. You can't protect players from everything some concussions are just accidental.

When I first played rugby at secondary school back in the early sixties we were always taught to tackle round the legs and by and large that was the ethos in the senior game. Above waist tackles were a bit of a rarity. Over the years tackles got higher and higher until round the neck and upper body tackles appear to be the norm. It was much more exciting to see a player perform a flying leg tackle than to watch three or more defenders reaching out to grab the opposite player's collar or hug their shoulder. Perhaps coaches should emphasise the leg tackle once again.

His recurrences maybe but I reckon that headshot from Willie Isa back at the start of 2021 started the problems.

Leg tackles generally mean you are conceding contact and are promoting a quick play the ball for the opposition. They also increase the chances of an offload.

The game would have to change massively as a sport for the leg tackle to be the norm.

Same as me, and that was in the 80s through to the 90s and just to add I played both codes as well, and we practiced hitting the tackle bags or proper game practice the same way by all sets of coaches in both codes through the years.

Even though we see some great textbook tackles, usually when a back's been put through a gap in the defensive line, and then either the fullback or winger comes across and wraps his legs up and takes him into touch they're few and far between.

In SL It's got gradually worse since more and more Aussie coaches started coming over and teaching their defensive tactics from the NRL, because down under controlling the ruck speed and therefore the defense is what their game is built on. But let's be honest, if we hadn't moved with the times we'd have been left further behind than we appear to be as a competition. Gonna be interesting when the players get used to the new way of tackling and then the next game we'll be playing down under or even against Samoa, how's it all gonna fit together at the international level?

Any body fancy a game of touch and pass.

These new laws are knee jerk and clearly meeting an agenda. Why not simply clamp down harder on head shots and off the ball hits when the body is relaxed, a bunker system would police this instead of these embarrassing new rules. Players are very conditioned for high impact, strengthening of neck muscles is proven to help prevent concussion, what it doesn’t protect is lazy/dirty high tackles and off the ball shots. I wish common sense would prevail.

Always been illegal.

Yes exactly, so like I say a bunker system like the NRL have that will catch the ones that are consistently missed throughout a game.

So there is no point bringing in new rules to legislate against it then. Concussion will continue to happen, it's impossible to prevent, even if no contact at all was brought into the game. What this is a a repsone to only having one company who will insure the players. They will have put an onus on the RFL to reduce head knocks from foul play, accidental clashes are unavoidable.

Concussion will always be a risk when playing high impact sport, through accident or intentional, the University of Boston have been world leaders in the study of CTE, especially within the NFL. Even with their protection it’s still very evident. I personally believe a bunker system would be far more effective then the new rules, which as you say have had to be brought in for insurance issues.

So to me, the only difference between what you say and what the rule says, is that they want to put a benchmark in to apply the penalty/yellow/red.
If you leave it to the bunker they'll just apply the same rule.

I was speaking to a current international coach this morning, he said the new rules will change everything, not only the way you defend but also attack and offload. Also it will be a penaltyafon leading to greater fatigue and more careless tackles. For me it will not only ruin the game, but not make that big of an impact on players physical welfare. The reason I said about the bunker is that how many incidents are missed through the game that would be picked up, players showing variable symptoms of concussion missed by a single ref, high shot, off ball stuff etc. You see the bunker pick up loads of concussed players just playing on as they have been missed by the match official but picked up by the bunker and taken off the field.

How would you tackle a small player who ducks into a tackle against a forward. It was difficult to avoid head high tackles within the current system so the new limits will make it virtually impossible.