In a bid to reduce the number of head injuries in the sport, the RFL have been trialling laws which ban tackles above the armpit and see kick-offs taken from the opposition’s 40, rather than half-way.
The academy curtain-raiser at Headingley last Friday was an opportunity for a decent-sized crowd to get a first look at the experiment and it’s fair to say they weren’t impressed.
The game finished 32-26 to Hull KR, which sounds like a thriller, but the 80 minutes of rugby was reduced to a farce by a grand total of 58 penalties.
Hull KR went 18-0 ahead inside 10 minutes, Leeds Rhinos replied with 26 unanswered points and then the visitors scored the final 14.
In the closing stages, beginning when they trailed 26-24, Hull KR realised all they had to do was let ‘high’ tackles piggyback them upfield, then take the two when they got within kicking range.
In that fashion, they landed four late goals to seal an eight-point victory. There were 18 penalties in the final quarter, 15 of them to the visitors, including five on successive tackles at one stage.
Rather than modern rugby league, the game resembled a return to the old unlimited tackle law; with an error being the only way for the defending side to regain possession.
One more round, a fourth, of academy matches will be played in the trial before the results are assessed and it may well be the numbers show a significant reduction in concussions –though a Rovers player went off for a head injury assessment in the early moments.
Legal action from a number of former players threatens the sport’s existence; a huge payout could bankrupt the code and the RFL clearly have to be seen to be doing something to combat the number of head injuries, but they are in an impossible situation.
Contact is the very nature of rugby league and players involved in the trial are now expected to play the sport in an entirely different manner to the way they’ve been taught since they first picked up a ball.
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Habits of a lifetime don’t change in a matter of weeks, no matter how much training is done, so a huge number of penalties becomes inevitable, but ruins the spectacle.
Though those leading the experiment feel behaviour is changing, the 58 penalties in Leeds’ game against Hull KR was one more than the first match of the trial, between Rhinos and Bradford Bulls at Odsal so there is a long way to go.
Concussion is a serious issue in sport. Hull KR’s Lachlan Coote retired earlier this season following a series of head knocks, two years after ex-Rhinos captain Stevie Ward did the same.
Inevitably, the direction of travel – and only way to make the game truly safe – will be to ban contact altogether. Rugby league has adapted throughout its history, but in terms of attracting paying spectators, removing the big hits could be a step too far.
At some stage, touch and pass – or tag – may become the only way for rugby league to survive, but who wants to watch that?
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