: Fri Mar 27, 2009 10:18 am
Dave Heron's Moustache wrote:
However, I don't see anything wrong with tackling without arms, it's the location of the tackle that probably needs clearing up. The best technique usually is to use the arms after shoulder impact simply to stop the tackled player bouncing off, but in Union if the arms aren't wrapped around it's a penalty. I find it difficult to see how you can coach kids to make the shoulder the first point of contact then penalise them if they knock a guy over before you can wrap your arms around him. There is so much scope for interpretation that it's unworkable and we have an already available example of it in action. It's a terrible law that just adds to the already apocalyptic penalty count in an average game. League is an impact sport, as long as the impact is away from the head area and with the shoulder or arms then that's fine with me.
I fully accept your argument here as the most effective tackles are driven through the shoulder first with the arms wrapping around. Even if League followed Union's example I don't think the arms would absolutely need to wrap around for the tackle to be deemed legal as long as the arms are in motion to do so. If the ball carrier bounced away before the arms got there it would still be an OK tackle although open to the referee's interpretation but isn't every tackle anyway.
I think the sport has a potential problem in this area when so many people within the game are defending a deliberate tackling technique that resulted in a player being injured and a disciplinary process putting the responsibility of the point of impact onto the ball carrier.
Fa'asavalu's run was crouched a couple of steps before the impact but as Bailey had probably already fixed his target and closed his eyes anticipating the impact of the hit by that stage it ended up in the attacker's mush.
Tackling technique aside, it was just one of those things. Neither were (nor particularly should) back down in that situation and it's a run where someone was likely to come off second best and there's nothing wrong with that.