Vlandys clutching at straws or dillusional?

[nuggetron]

It’s not the kids who are playing and then taken out it’s the kids who never play to begin with. I know of a lot of families who would never let their children play rugby league due to it being too rough and head knocks are part of that.

And that's fine, there are always the cotton wool parents. The same parents who don't allow their kids to climb trees .

bit of a difference between falling out of a tree once and breaking a bone or getting knocked out and playing junior footy without proper tackle technique and getting continual head knocks
my 2 year old runs around, eats dirt etc without me or my wife stopping him, but i have no interest in signing him up to junior nrl and when the time comes to it he probably will play soccer due to the OPs points

Go down and have a look at your local under 6s sides running around before you make a decision....

Junior NRL ?

i'll pay the junior nrl. it's the national under 6s cup, they fly around the east coast and play televised games, very poor quality, as bad as xfl was but its early days and we just need to get the young blood in the league to be a success.

 

[twentyforty]

Participation of kids is part of it no doubt, but this is all about future litigation by players. It will send the game broke.
NRL have to take a stand on head and neck contact now. The game is still tough. Even without the punching, stiff arms and spear tackles. Just part of the evolution of becoming professional.

How do sports like boxing and UFC survive? The goal of those sports is to inflict brain damage.

Yes, and it was never made more clearer by Mike Tyson when he was asked why his opponents feared him? His chilling reply..because I go in there to kill my opponent. The kind of attitude which had him bite off an opponents ear. I would like to see the short arm jab ruled out of the NRL though.

 

[Mighty_Tiger]

Having been involved with JRL for a whole. Yes know of alot of parents who either moved kids from comps that had bigger kids playing or moved them to alternate sports. In juniors some kids go up against others that are adult size at under 8-10s. I have seen alot of ambulances due to head/knecknissues. It is a real problem. Some districts struggle to field teams over the last 10yrs compared to before then when it was easy.

They are even trialing sideline headscan equipment before the game and during at junior games. It is serious threat to the game.

People are screaming about the weekend but geez some people need to get a grip. Of the people sinbinned / sent off = 99.5% of tackles where ok & only 2% of players infringed of which they all made tackles fine majority of the time they played. There was even some teams who didn’t offend at all (ours one of them). Yeah sure accidents happened but the send off incidents were lazy hits & need to be penalized harder than just a penalty.

Most that got sent to the bin was for constant breaches or silly plays and not hitting the head. Most of those should have been.

I have met alot of ex nrl players and some aren’t in great shape headwise. This needed to happen and in a few months it will settle down.

 

[Snake]

Participation of kids is part of it no doubt, but this is all about future litigation by players. It will send the game broke.
NRL have to take a stand on head and neck contact now. The game is still tough. Even without the punching, stiff arms and spear tackles. Just part of the evolution of becoming professional.

How do sports like boxing and UFC survive? The goal of those sports is to inflict brain damage.

Because that is an obvious risk that falls within the rules of the sport and participants are presumed to be aware of that obvious risk and choose to proceed in any event. They also have requirements in, for example, amateur boxing around head gear and glove weight and in UFC and professional boxing they have long windows between fights to mitigate risk.

It is not within the rules of league to strike a player to the head, but it is a potential risk. League needs to put in place sufficient rules and enforcement measures to mitigate the risk to players. They are apparently concerned that they may not be doing enough.

Its rare ..but you are completely right for once

Vlandy is a lawyer he knows exactly where this is going without the proper Duty of Care... he would also be derelict in his duty not outlaw head shots to protect players and the organisation that he runs ! There is going to be accidental incidents which is unavoidable in such a contact sport but leading with a shoulder to the head or swinging arms to head head is NOT ON both these on display on the weekend !

 

[supercoach]

I think Uncle Wayne’s thoughts on the subject were the best. Yes without doubt the head has to be protected from foul and careless play, but unless it is a obvious breach of the rules, let the game flow and let the match review committee deal with anything that slips through. On the weekend in a lot of cases it was a knee jerk reaction by the pea blowers and the bunker.

Personally I think the crazy six again rule is playing a part in the increase head knocks. Anyway I bet things settle down a tad this weekend

 

[Guest]

I notice the invisible man Abdo has suddenly emerged from the shadows.
V'landys has announced just about everything over the past year but suddenly it's Abdo who's become the mouthpiece in the last couple of weeks.
Is there an agenda at work?

 

[jrtiger]

if it's true about senior figures in the RLPA looking to take steps to remove V'Landys, it confirms that they are some of the most self entitled and stupid people on this earth. If we had Greenberg instead of V'Landys this time last year we wouldn't even have a game left.

I think they've gone a touch too far with the 10m penalties being scrapped in favour of six agains and they've gone about the crackdown in the wrong manner, but if we work off Robbo's idea about certain graded tackles equal certain punishments, I think we'll be ok. fact is, like Happy said, there's going to be a host of players that could easily sue for CTE and bring the game to its knees. it needs to be stopped now.

as for a bloke like Victor Radley, I love watching him play. I think he was dudded by being charged with the Coates tackle and the Pangai Jr tackle was only a penalty at best, but the shot on Kelly deservedly saw him sat down. Moses Leota last week, stupid stupid swinging arm, he misses this week. They're getting most of them right. If we can fix the outliers and the accidental clashes, which I think they're currently doing, the game will be safer and cleaner, and we can all get on with it.

 

[supercoach]

Peter V lack of consultation with key stakeholders is the main issue rather than the crackdown, just like the six again rule. I guess the mid season timing was not smart either.

Peter V is a ruthless operator, with that comes good and bad. If he wants to get something done he does it, but sometimes you need to talk to the people involved

 

[Elderslie_Tiger]

What PVL is trying to do should have happened years ago and sadly the years of inaction is starting to come home to roost.
John SATTLER Mario FENCH and probably others and now Steve MORTIMER if the RLPA can not see the action that PVL is taking is for their own good well maybe its to late for them and the head knocks have caught up with them but for those coming through somebody does care

 

[tiger_one]

It's comin' and that's ilfe.

Remember when cars didn't have seat belts, there was no point 05, cars had cigarette lighters ... etc etc
Times change, science is our teacher and .... that's life!
The Chairman is spot on - these changes are needed and needed now!

 

[jirskyr]

Peter V lack of consultation with key stakeholders is the main issue rather than the crackdown, just like the six again rule. I guess the mid season timing was not smart either.

Peter V is a ruthless operator, with that comes good and bad. If he wants to get something done he does it, but sometimes you need to talk to the people involved

The main issue is consultation with these "key stakeholders" sometimes gets us nowhere, e.g. RLPA is very slow to move unless it means more money for their constituents.

I'm also often suspicious of the RLPA, because even though they are a key component of the NRL, they are employees of the clubs and, by proxy, the fans. You are allowed to complain about your employer and offer feedback, but when you start to think it's your right and expectation as an employee to be consulted on all decisions - it starts to be come a joke. It's not a democracy, I don't get to have a 1:1 with the CEO (nor do my representatives) any time he decides to implement a change at the company.

Whilst I think PVL certainly gets some things wrong, or goes a little too hard into the contact, the reality is he is a very successful sports operator, he has runs on the board, and the NRL is in need of an overhaul. PVL did everything he could just to keep the game afloat during COVID, surpassing any other administrator in the country, and now he's turning his attention to what were originally his key strategic pillars - growing the junior player participation, increasing engagement with female and youth viewers, increasing the "sellability" of the TV product, attempting to maintain the broadcast revenues during the downturn in free-to-air TV / rise of streaming.

And the muppets at RLPA think they need to be consulted if PVL or the ARLC want to stamp-out head contact.

It's no different to player power at Wests Tigers vs letting the administrators just do their job and they focus on playing within the rules.

Specifically to the head-high tackles, there are plenty of accidents, but why is it so hard for players just not to make forceful contact with the head? Just because there is a lack of intent doesn't mean it shouldn't be rubbed out.