A look at illegal tackling

A definition and a discussion

There has been a lot of talk about illegal tackles, especially after the match between the Pacific Islanders and Australia when George Gregan was injured and Clyde Rathbone considerably shaken. Tempers have had a chance to calm, which makes for a better climate for discussion.

The most obvious point to make is that we should be dealing with illegal tackles. The word 'dangerous' occurs in Law 10 but it is a dicey word. It may well be better to make the whole law deal with illegal tackles and have them well-defined, from early tackles to spear tackles.

All tackles have an element of danger. It is the big one-on-one conflict area in the game. It is an aspect of play where people get hurt.

It is not the hurt or the danger which should count, but the legality or otherwise of the tackle.

One player may fly at another, intending to stop him dead in his tracks. Intending to hurt him in order to discourage him from further running with the ball is perfectly legally. He may hurt that player grievously, and still not be penalised because what he does is legal.

Another player may have no such harmful intent or effect and yet be penalised for an illegal tackle.

Nor does the person tackled alter the treatment of the tackle.

Seilala Mapusua should not be treated differently for tackling high-profile George Gregan than Inoke Afeaki for tackling new boy Clyde Rathbone. Jerry Collins recently remarked that he was suspended and vilified for a tackle on Chris Jack but lauded for a tackle on Wales's Colin Charvis, though the tackles were the same.

As a matter of interest, in their three matches the Pacific Islanders were penalised for illegal tackles five times, their opponents twice.

To tackle legally the defender must:

* tackle a player while he has the ball
* using his arms
* between his shoulders and his toes
* when he is on the ground

Tackling a player who does not have the ball:

If you tackle a player who does not have the ball, that is an illegal tackle.

This would include the early tackle (often missed), the late tackle (often missed in a passing movement), and some forms of "cleaning out".

The late tackle is best treated as a fact. If a player has kicked or passed the ball and he is then tackled, it is a late tackle.

When we go into things like momentum, intention and the nature of the playing surface as mitigating circumstances/excuses, we are in danger of watering the law down.

This business of "cleaning out" after a tackle easily becomes tackling a man without the ball. It is not legal in cleaning out to tackle an opponent who does not have the ball.

Law 15.8 (e) Players on their feet must not charge or obstruct an opponent who is not near the ball.

'Near' in rugby law is 'within a metre'.

Tackling is also not cleaning out. Contesting possession and/or forming a ruck is another matter. The law allows contesting possession, which means being near the ball.

Law 15.7 OTHER PLAYERS

(b) After a tackle players on their feet may attempt to gain possession by taking the ball from the ball carrier's possession.

(c) At a tackle or near to a tackle, other players who play the ball must do so from behind the ball and from behind the tackled player or the tackler closest to those players goal-line.
Penalty: Penalty Kick

(d) Any player who gains possession of the ball at the tackle must play the ball immediately by moving away or passing or kicking the ball.
Penalty: Free Kick

(e) Any player who first gains possession of the ball must not go to ground at the tackle or in close proximity to it unless tackled by an opposition player.
Penalty: Penalty Kick

(f) Any player who first gains possession of the ball at the tackle or in close proximity to it may be tackled by an opposition player providing that player does so from behind the ball and from behind the tackled player or the tackler nearest that players goal-line.
Penalty: Penalty Kick.

There is a difference between what the law has in mind and simply removing players from anywhere near the tackle-thing.

Law 10.4 (f) Playing an opponent without the ball. Except in a scrum, ruck or maul, a player must not hold, or push, or charge into, or obstruct an opponent not carrying the ball.
Penalty: Penalty Kick

Running past a tackle area to "hold or push or charge into or obstruct an opponent not carrying the ball" is illegal.

That was probably the burden of Eddie Jones's complaint before the first Tri-Nations Test. But then the player most accused - Keith Robinson - did not play!

Law 10: Playing a player without the ball is dangerous play.

Using your arms

Do the following gently for the sake of your door.

Go to the doorpost and move the point of your shoulder at it. You will see the potential for hard contact.

Stand back and now point your shoulder at the doorpost but lift you arm to grasp the doorpost. You will see that the hard point of your should recedes. The impact will certainly be less hurtful.

Tackling must be with arms out, and that incudes the way you go into tackle-thing, ruck and maul.

Below shoulders

Often excuses are made for the player who tackles high - that 'slid up' thing, or 'he ducked' or 'there was no danger'. The laws make excuses.

Law 10.4 (e) A player must not tackle (or try to tackle) an opponent above the line of the shoulders. A tackle around the opponents neck or head is dangerous play.

Forget 'slid up' and 'danger'. The law says he must not even try to do it.

As for the late tackle, it is probably best to view the high tackle as a fact.

The Laws go on to mention the stiff arm tackle. Again it is perhaps best treated as a fact, without making excuses for reflex.

The scrum-half runs at you, side-steps and is going past on your left. You stick out your arm and his Adam's apple collides with your stiff arm. Tough - but a penalty.

Rugby League - dare we mention it even though so many defensive coaches in our game come from rugby league? - is very clear on the high tackle. It has a Safety Code for playing the game. On the high tackle it says:

The Code: TACKLES ABOVE THE ARMPITS ARE NOT PERMITTED

Application:

(a) When a ball-carrier is running with an upright posture, any tackle in which the defenders arms makes contact ABOVE an armpit, constitutes an infringement.
(b) It is an infringement for a defender/tackler to set upon the head or neck region of a ball-carrier.
(c) A ball-carrier who is diving or running with a burrowing or stooped posture, can be blocked or tackled provided there is no contact by the defenders arms with the head or neck of the ballcarrier.

Defenders must tackle below the line of the shoulders.

On the ground

Law 10.4 (h) Tackling the jumper in the air. A player must not tackle or tap or push or pull the foot or feet of an opponent jumping for the ball in a line-out or in open play.
Penalty: Penalty Kick

A player must not tackle an opponent whose feet are off the ground in a jump.

You seldom here excuses when this one is blown.

Dangerous

Those forms of tackle are expressly mentioned as being ipso facto dangerous.

What about the Mapusua tackle on George Gregan? What about the spear tackle?

It's hard to see that that is not dangerous and deliberately intended to hurt.

Law 10 The referee decides whether or not a tackle is dangerous. The referee takes into account the circumstances, such as the apparent intentions of the tackler, or the nature of the tackle, or the defenceless position of the player being tackled or knocked over. Any of these may result in serious injury.

All forms of dangerous tackling must be punished severely. A player who commits this type of foul must be sent off. Advantage may be played, but if the offence prevents a probable try, a penalty try must be awarded.

It's hard to see what other form of tackle is in mind here besides the spear tackle - something dangerous and illegal.

The spear tackle occurs when a player lifts the ball carrier up off the ground, turns him over and then drives him groundwards, head or shoulders first.

Surely the laws could define that.

As a matter of interest rugby league does.

Section 15, Law 1 (d), Notes 1 (d), Page 38.

Definition of 1. A player is guilty of misconduct if he:
(a) trips, kicks or strikes another player.
(b) when effecting or attempting to effect a tackle makes contact with the head or neck of an
opponent intentionally, recklessly or carelessly.
(c) drops knees first on to an opponent who is on the ground
(d) uses any dangerous throw when effecting a tackle.

Dangerous throw (d) If, in any tackle of, or contact with, an opponent that player is so lifted that he is placed in a position where it is likely that the first part of his body to make contact with the ground will be his head or neck (the dangerous position), then that tackle or contact will be deemed to be a dangerous throw unless, with the exercise of reasonable care, the dangerous position could not have been avoided.

Discretion

The less discretion the better. There is no discretion for a knock-on, off-side, dropped goal, and so on. There is just application. Discretion leads us into the murky world of interpretation.

Surely the question of discretion is relevant in the way the referee acts after awarding a penalty.

He has the discretion to admonish, caution or send off - that is ticked off, sent to the sin bin or sent off altogether.

It is interesting that Mapusua should have been cited and gently suspended. In fact in that tackle there may have been no evil intent at all, just a matter of being unbalanced as Gregan weighed down his left side!

Would it not perhaps be best to limit discretion to that - not to treating the fact of what has happened?

But then says the great referee: "You are making refereeing too robotic."

But then there is no discretion about a knock-on, off-side and a dropped goal. The referee decides there on what happened, not on degrees of happening. A drop is either over or not over. It's not a little bit over or a little bit not over!