The thunderous blow from Rabbitohs, Queensland and Australian superstar Greg Inglis on Dragons lock Dean Young once again has ignited the debate surrounding the shoulder charge in the game with many crying out to see shoulder charges outlawed.
As a Warriors fan, I watch week in week out Ben Matulino lay out opponents with his shoulder. Big Ben certainly has the reputation nowadays of being one of leagues true hitmen and he puts opponents on their backside with regularity. Despite this, I struggle to think of incidences where Matulino has connected with an opponents head, I struggle to think of when he has been suspended or even been put on report, I struggle to think of times where I've been genuinely concerned about the consequences of a hit he has thrown. I love to see a big hit, to see a bloke get smashed, as I'm sure most League fans do, but I do not like seeing someone get injured one bit, no matter how much of a grub they may be. Ben smashes people, but he smashes people in the way the game is meant to be played. I have little doubt that if he wanted to take the suspension that he could be having people carried off the field regularly, but he doesn't, he just continues to deliver the big, perfectly timed, clean shoulder to ball runners who are unfortunate enough to have themselves lined up. That's the difference, Matulino makes shoulder hits as a League play, he doesn't shoulder charge because he wants to injure people. To me, it looked quite clear that Inglis wasn't thinking about making a League play, he was thinking about absolutely destroying Dean Young and in doing so he went beyond the laws of the game and will be sitting on the sidelines for three weeks.
Shoulder charges are not the problem, reckless play is the problem. Why should we punish the Ben Matulino's of the world by taking away a part of his arsenal that is effective, clean and entertaining? perhaps if the punishments for such reckless play were stricter, we'd see more players who made a point of ensuring that if they are going to drop the shoulder, they do it right. Sure GI now sits for three weeks, but what about in the game, what happens to the guys doing these hits? a bit of a telling off and being placed on report, worry about it next week. If the refs began to start sending more blokes off the field for hits like that, we'd be seeing a lot more coaches ensuring that their players weren't making these types of hits, not when the consequences could be so costly. Don't get me wrong, I actually like the report system because I want to see the game played with an even number of guys on the field, that is how it is meant to be played, but if players knew being sent off was a very real possibility, would they want to run the risk of making a hit like Inglis did? or would they just focus on making a League play instead of hurting someone. Or perhaps if the refs had the power to eject a player from the game while still allowing his team to play at full strength? no coach is going to want to deal with playing with one less guy on his team the rest of the game, especially if it's one of his stars, and I suspect the players themselves wouldn't want to be thrown out of the game either, so maybe they'd be a little more careful and show a bit more respect for the game itself and the guys they are playing against.
The shoulder charge issue always brings out the concussion brigade in full force nowadays. As a fan of American Football, I'm well aware of some of the tragic results of concussion that have come about over there. I agree wholeheartedly that concussions are a very serious issue and we need to ensure that the guys out there destroying each other for our entertainment need to be taken care of. But why does it take somebody being smoked on a shoulder charge for the issue of concussion to once again come up for discussion. I was under the impression that the NRL was meant to be cracking down on issues around concussion this year, of course, it wouldn't be the first time we've heard that. Instead of worrying about shoulder charges, let's worry about the guys that we see every week getting absolutely hammered, taken off, and they're back on the field ten minutes later. Can Farah even remember playing Origin? he certainly wasn't all there after the blow he took, but of course "that's Origin", except I see it every weekend in the NRL also. The sideline reporter will offer us an update, "yeah he's just a bit groggy but he'll be back", we all know that groggy is just a nice word to use instead of the dreaded "c word". It's OK, he's just groggy, he'll be right, sounds a lot better than well actually he's away with the fairies but we'll spray some water on him and shove him back on soon. If we're that worried about concussions and the aftermath of them, then stop the guys we see leaving the field not even knowing what direction they're going from coming back onto the field. For all of the concern over the Inglis hit and concussions, Dean Young is on the Dragons team list for this week. I'm no doctor, but are we meant to believe that his brain is ready for another round so quickly? as someone who is genuinely concerned about the concussion issue, this is a much bigger problem to me and it happens all the time. Sure, some will say that if it wasn't for the shoulder charge Young wouldn't be in the situation. Fact is in this game people are going to get hurt and even without shoulder charges we are still going to see some people knocked out, we're still going to see some people "a bit groggy". Young was getting driven off the field a week ago, I guess his brain made a quick recovery, plenty of time to worry about it once his career is finished though I suppose.
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