NRL Issues of Contention Round 6

Another round of NRL and another round of contentious issues.

Can't be seen as a shoulder charge if the shoulder is not leading the body.  Fair hit in my  opinion.

Hardly any surprise that Tim Sheens and the Tigers are at the head of my list this round.  Seems all the talk after the game is about the tackle Ben Te'o put on Matt Groat. Tackle aside, it is the fallout from this that has me scratching my head. The talk of a 19th man for substitution when a player is taken out of the game through by injury from foul play. Surely they are not serious. Imagine half-way through the second half you have a player out on his feet and not playing the best, he receives a hit that is high and takes the ultimate dive insisting that he is unable to continue. Dives in sport are bad enough as it is. Whilst I do not condone taking out players through foul play, you can guarantee coaches and players will see the loophole before the legitimate use of the proposed rule. If the NRL wants to go down this rule then scrap interchange totally and go back to 4 substitutions and allow a fifth for serious injury from a foul play that is put on report.  Or look at the idea of only 4 interchanges and 2 substitutions. But then maybe if the NRL was serious about serious foul play that they deem dangerous then start sending players off.

Which leads me to my next issue with this game. The lack of the sin bin. Leading up to the first Broncos try the 2 tackles both were deliberate attempts by the Tigers to slow down the play to allow their defensive structure to build and stop Brisbane from a legitimate quick play the ball. Even though Brisbane went on to score, past games have shown the Refs immediately blow the whistle for a penalty and send the offending player to the sidelines for 10 minutes. Then you have the incident where Blair clearly takes out Wallace very late and very intentional. Surely it warranted more than just a penalty?  It was a potentially dangerous tackle and it was only luck that Wallace was not seriously injured. The Broncos haters that are out there will only want to talk about the Te'o tackle. I have a feeling Te'o will not get off on this one but look at the facts. He was standing at his normal height and Groat ran straight at him. Groat is shorter so obviously if he is going to run with his head forward then his head will hit Te'o. For me this is just a case of the attacking player getting ending up in an unfortunate position. When it is a high impact sport, a player carrying the ball should surely look to take more care rather than just running straight at a defender blindly. If this is the case and it is going to be penalised every-time then how does a tall player tackle a shorter player without making contact with the head? When it was Pritchard the whole southern contingent were behind him saying it was a good hit. That same contingent are now condemning this one. Seems they want it both ways. As Te'o has pledged his allegiance to the maroons, I can see him getting a few weeks for that hit. Especially if it was closer to Origin.


UPDATE:

Well it shouldn't come as a surprise that the NRL judiciary found Ben Te'o guilty, even though the majority of the Rugby League community consider it a fair hit.  Be assured that I will be on top of every high tackle that is reported and referred by the Match Review Committee to see how future tackles are judged. Seeing as most comparisons are to the hit Frank Pritchard got one week for, I couldn't see how the NRL would be able to defend the decision in the legal system.