Injuries and reports. How does it work?

[Dave085]

Im interested to know your opinions on this.

A player will be rubbed out for making intentional/reckless head high contact and the time spent on the sidelines is largely dependant on sustained injuries, however can still be suspended if the hit player spends time of the ground.

Given the current climate why isn't this also reportable???

2 players running hard, one with the ball and the other chasing. Player with the ball intends to kick just before contact to gain as much ground as possible and to make it effective. Player chasing makes contact (usually a technical push in the back) to make the kick ineffective.

There have been examples of this (cant think of any right now) where the player with the ball has then sustained a hamstring injury due to the extra strain and stretching caused by the push. Why is it then that the player pushing isn't held accountable for the injury? Its also rarely called as a push in the back when it clearly is...

I realise that this is technical and would be hard to police but give me your thoughts. It is an illegal move and causes injuries.

Recent example but no injury - This round, Majak Daw v Richmond - Daw running for goal and pushed just before his kick which made it ineffective. No injury but say he pulled his hammy and is out for 3 or 4 weeks.

[Ziplock]

Because it's hard to tell if that's what caused the injury- players could do  their hammy just from the kicking motion, or even just running. It's not like a high hit when you can go- well, it's not as though his jaw spontaneously fractured...

because of the uncertain nature of what actually caused the injury, you'd have to suspend everyone whenever they pushed someone in the back, even if injury wasn't caused.

The better way to fix the issue would be for umpires to just call 'in the back',.

[Dave085]

I agree. Like I said it would be hard to police and open to opinion.

I don't understand why in the back isn't called when this happens. Its not even subtle most of the time.

[Toga]

Protection from head injuries are gonna be the focus for MRP/Tribunal and the cause of head injuries will be much easier to police.

[Mailman the 2nd]

Because for some absurd reason push in the back only gets paid if its in a marking contest or if the player falls over.

The umpires get told each week what type of free to crack down on and they'll play 100 of those and ignore pretty much everything else until their error costs another team a game and then the cycle continues.

Don't worry, this week it's centre bounces and not letting Tom Hawkins take 5 minutes to take his shot for goal (not that they'll get that right anyway)