Tip tackle laws need changing or rugby collisions could become as dangerous ...

So, what did Hopper do? He immediately let go and allowed him to fall. If you

read Law 10.4, that is deemed as dangerous play and can result in a red

card, because you have not brought the player safely back down to earth.

I am not blaming Hopper for this, far from it.

What I am saying is that the players are now starting to think about which is

the lesser of the two evils.

It is almost being damned if you do and damned if you don’t.

Nowell and Hopper were involved in a similar situation later in the same game.

This time, Nowell followed through in his tackle on Hopper and received a

yellow card.

Yet, in my eyes, it was much safer.

He got a yellow because he landed on top of him and so it looked like a spear.

What do you do?

It is just getting silly. Although it has been going on for years, it came to

the fore with Sam Warburton’s tackle on Vincent Clerc in the World Cup

semi-final in New Zealand.

To begin with, I want kids to play the game and I want them to be safe when

they are playing it.

Nobody wants to see a spear tackle like the one Brian O’Driscoll suffered on

the Lions tour, in Christchurch, in 2005.

Having said that, I do not think there is any consistency in the judgment of

what is going on.

If we are not careful, the whole tackle technique is going to change

completely.

Let us go back in time. When Phil Larder, England’s defence cpach under Sir

Clive Woodward, came over to union, players were encouraged to tackle in a

particular way.

If someone ran into you with a tackle bag, you were encouraged to wrap one arm

around the bag and the other arm around the leg.

The aim, would be to pick up the leg and drive forward. That has been going on

since.

Players took that on to the pitch with the mentality of winning every

collision.

To win the tackle more positively, you would aim to put the person you are

tackling on their back.

So, if someone is running at you at full tilt and you are doing likewise, you

have to destabilise them.

You have to take their point of contact off the floor. That, automatically,

means lifting the leg, not necessarily lifting it high, but lifting it all

the same.

Alternatively, you can squeeze the legs together and drive forward.

Natural physics will indicate that if you do that, the player will come off

his feet. T

hen, if you have hit him hard enough, in a straight, linear motion, you will

knock him off his feet on to his back.

With the force you are hitting him, more often than not you will land directly

on top of him. Your centre of gravity will be way forward, beyond your feet.

As far as the attacker is concerned, when he has been hit in a tackle that he

did not want to be hit in, he wants to fall in a position that presents the

ball, so his side can continue to win it quickly and easily.

He does not want to fall on his back. He either wants to land on his side or

on his front. So what he does is to twist in the air.

You can then put one arm down and place the ball with other.

Unlike the defender, who wants his feet on the floor when he tackles, the

attacker wants his feet off the floor.

If you know you have been hit and you are a small guy, you want your feet off

the floor because you want to make the area of inertia as small as possible.

The impact is not as great and it does not hurt.

So, we are almost getting to a situation where every big tackle could be

perceived as a tip tackle.

It is frustrating and is threatening to become a dominant issue.

Let us go back to the Warburton tackle. It was just very good, powerful

technique.

It was the perfect example of a big guy hitting a small guy and the small guy,

as you would expect, going into the air.

If I am moving quickly against a 16-stone forward and pick up that leg and

drive forward, there is no way I can safely put them on the ground.

What you tend to do is to take yourself off your feet, as they have done, and

that gives the impression of a spear.

It is almost like a no-win situation and the problem is that it might end up

with players taking their arms out of the tackle and becoming a little but

more like American football where the sheer size and bulk of someone takes

another player off their feet.

Otherwise, everyone goes back to a low tackle technique.

The aim of the International Rugby Board is to make the game safer for young

people.

I think it does a good job, but it certainly needs to take a long hard look at

this and to give the referees a directive that will help the game improve in

an area of genuine importance.

Article source: http://www1.skysports.com/rugby-union/news/12550/8938320/aviva-premiership-london-irish-sign-wales-international-ian-gough

Tip tackle laws need changing or rugby collisions could become as dangerous ...