SPECIAL REPORT
Paul Rees discovers a fair amount of concern over the RFU’s plans to alter rules over tackle height
When the RFU last month announced that the tackle height in the community game would be reduced from July 1, it said the move was designed to reduce head impact exposure and concussion risk in the tackle for both the ball carrier and the tackler.
The announcement followed a meeting of the RFU’s council which heard medical evidence that “higher contact on the ball carrier and closer proximity of the ball carrier and tacklers’ heads are associated with larger impacts (as measured by smart mouthguards) and an increased risk of concussion.”
It went on: “Lowering the height of the tackle and encouraging the tackler to bend more at the waist will minimise the risk of this occurring.”
It said that its own research and studies from around the world showed that “lowering the tackle height would reduce head impact exposure and the risk of concussion.”
Hmm. Four years before, almost to the day, the RFU abandoned a trial in the Championship Cup that lowered the tackle height because while it improved safety in one area of the game, contact with the head of the ball-carrier, the risk when a ball-carrier and tackler were both bent at the waist increased.
Players were not allowed to tackle above the armpit, but the number of concussions rose. The focus then, as now, was to reduce the risk of concussion when both the ball-carrier and tackler were upright, but going lower did not make for greater safety.
Tackles above the armpit line decreased by 25 per cent and there was a 41 per cent drop in the number of contacts with the head or neck of a ball-carrier. But the number of concussions increased by 67 per cent. “Our two main objectives were whether, through law change, the height of the tackle can actually be reduced and if a reduction in the height of the tackle then leads to a reduction in concussion risk,” said Nigel Melville, who was then the RFU’s interim chief executive.
The answer to the second objective was a clear no, but that has not deterred the RFU from having another go in the community game where the concussion rate is around one quarter of what it is at the professional end. It prompted a mutiny of clubs throughout the country with several players and coaches at lower levels fearing that its main impact would be to drive players away from the game and lead to clubs folding.
The RFU was shaken by the response and promised it would consult with clubs before a final decision was made. Meetings were held in the counties last week, but the chances of the idea going the way of the Championship Cup trial look remote unless clubs call for a special general meeting of the RFU.
The changes will affect clubs in National 1 and below, levels where players are semi-professional or amateur, training a couple for nights a week, and lack the conditioning and power of those who earn their living in the Premiership. The area of the game which needs to be tackled first is the top end, but the RFU cannot lower the tackle height in the Premiership because clubs play in cross-border tournaments and a number of their players are involved in international rugby.
Only World Rugby could lower the tackle height across the board and it has not indicated that it is minded to do so. It is too late this year anyway with the World Cup being held in France in the autumn, so why is the RFU targeting an area of the game where concussion rates are far lower?
One answer is that there are many more games played in the community game and therefore the number of concussions is higher, although concussions following acts of foul play are more prevalent but, after the failure of the 2019 trial, World Rugby experts concluded that a sanction focus was more likely to achieve behaviour change than lowering the tackle height, the prelude to a card flurry in that year’s World Cup.
“My belief is that it is connected to the legal action being taken by former players who are suffering with early onset dementia,” said Ashley Rowden, below, the former Premiership referee who is now involved with National 1 club Rams who are pushing for promotion to the Championship and do not know yet the tackle height their players will need to observe next season.
“This is a sledgehammer to crack a nut and I have never felt so depressed about the future of rugby,” said Rowden. “The issue is not the community game but top level rugby where players are bigger, faster and better conditioned than ever before. The impact when they collide is far greater than it is even in the division the Rams play in and they are able to deal with it, unlike amateur players.
“We had a Burns Night dinner and some of the older stagers there said they would consider giving up because they could not tackle below the waist when they were 20 never mind now. One chief executive I spoke to said he thought his club would lose one of its four teams and he is not alone in fearing that.
“The RFU is applying an amateur solution to a professional problem. They cited a trial in France that saw the tackle height lowered but its impact has been minimal and reading recent interviews with people involved in the game there, it is not being that well policed.
“What also concerns me is that anyone who opposes the RFU’s move is portrayed as someone who is prepared to risk the welfare of players. Nothing could be further from the truth: first, the ones most at risk are the professionals who will not be affected by this and second, they seem to be focusing on reducing head-onhead contact as if taking a knee to the head is a lesser concussion.
“I feel for the referees who will have to implement the new tackle height, without the benefit of a television official or assistants. I spoke to a coach who asked how a guard at a ruck is going to be able to get down quickly to tackle someone coming around the corner really flat and fast off a scrum-half.
“He will not have the time or space to go low and what about pick and gos near the tryline? Do defenders let someone score rather than risk getting sent off ? As the coach said, all the cards are now in the hands of the attack at a time when the set-pieces are not much of a contest for possession, knackering the balance of the game.”
When clubs in Berkshire met their council member David McAteer last week to discuss the subject, no one was in favour of the RFU’s move, which was made without consultation. As one delegate said, if you want to make the amateur game safe, turn it into touch rugby.
“We are fighting for the future of our game,” said Rowden. “Lose this and there will either be no contact in 10 years or it will be so sanitised that no one will want to play the game. There has been talk of calling a special general meeting of the RFU and it may be that council representatives need to be deselected before the game of rugby itself is put first.
“One coach asked whether the start of next season would be put back to give everyone time to coach the new tackle height. One guy said he could see his club ceasing to exist next year if the change came in be-cause of what players had told him. The mood is one of anger, frustration and sadness.”
The RFU’s council is due to meet next week to discuss the next step but a vote may not be held until April. It seems from discussions clubs have had at country level that the tackle height will be lowered to some point above the waist, partly as a response to the adverse reaction the announcement generated.
Watching a video of last week’s match between Cambridge and the Rams, one feature stood out. The big hits that predominate in Premier-ship and Test matches were all but absent: players did not charge into rucks to clear out an opponent. It was two levels below the top tier, but almost a world away.
The following day London Irish welcomed Harlequins to the Gtech Stadium in Brentford. Their wing Michael Dykes scored a hat-trick of tries on his Premiership debut hav-ing played for the Rams earlier in the season, something that would be unlikely to happen next season if the Berkshire club remained in National I because they would be subject to a different tackle law than the Exiles which would make it hazardous for players dropping down.
The RFU’s belated consultation with clubs came in a week when a long-term study by teams at the universities of Oxford and Exeter found that suffering three or more concussions as a young adult cause long-term brain damage that is linked to dementia.
The study involved 15,000 participants in the UK who were aged between 50 and 90. They were followed up for 25 years, completing annual tests. Those who reported at least three mild concussive episodes, usually decades earlier, had worse attention spans and found it harder to complete complex tasks as they aged.
Each additional concussion was linked to progressively worse brain skills and the authors concluded: “The more times you injure your brain in life, the worse your brain function could be as you age.” They called for people to be fully informed of their heightened risk of longterm damage if they continue highrisk sports after a concussion.
The Six Nations kicked off in Cardiff yesterday when Wales met Ireland. A number of players involved had suffered at least three concussions in their careers. Jamie George started for England against Scotland later in the afternoon two weeks after failing a head injury assessment playing for Saracens against Edinburgh.
The hooker was sent to the sin-bin for the high challenge on Luke Crosbie but returned to the field after his 10 minutes were up only to be stood down by the match day doctor. George did not break his fall as he went to ground after the tackle, raising fears he had been momentarily knocked out.
The lobby group Progressive Rugby said that he should have been removed from the match immediately because an HIA was not needed. “At a time when the amateur game is being asked to undertake significant change on the grounds of safety, it’s incumbent on the professional game to get their house in order,” it said.
Is it not time for the game to consider appointing a concussion commissioner in each union whose job would be to monitor players who failed head injury assessments or are talked from the field without the need for one? If research shows that three concussions cause long-term brain damage, should it be left to clubs and countries to decide how long a player is out of action for?
Two years ago, World Rugby announced it was setting up a panel of independent concussion consultants who would be available to provide expert opinion on whether a concussed player should return to play after the completion of HIA protocols and that in certain scenarios teams were obligated to seek their advice, but has it made a difference?
“Suffering three or more concussions as a young adult can be linked to dementia later on”
A player failing an HIA has to follow return-to-play protocols, but who is keeping a tally on the number of concussions a player suffers? Are players, as the Oxford and Exeter study recommended, being fully informed about the heightened risk of long-term damage if they continue playing after a concussion?
Making changes in the amateur game is relatively straightforward because livelihoods are not at stake. If someone had told George not to play yesterday, he would have lost money and when players are sent off or cited for high tackles, they very rarely get the recommended minimum punishment because mitigating factors are taken into account: when players were unpaid, only aggravating factors were considered by disciplinary panels.
“If they are serious about getting professional players to reduce their tackle height, they should give them proper bans,” said Rowden. “Why should they get 50 per cent off for saying sorry? Start giving them big suspensions and it would make them think more.
“A question that needs to be asked is how do we want rugby to look 10 years from now. If it is to make 15-a side a glorified version of Sevens go for it, but there will not be many players left. Of course the risk of injury needs to be minimised, but every player knows they can get injured playing a contact sport.
“The number of high tackles are far lower in the levels beneath the top two divisions. People play rugby because of its physical and mental challenges and its camaraderie. It only becomes a job when you reach the top and the rewards become high. At that level they set out not to hurt opponents but dominate them and there is a big difference between a Premiership match and one even just a few levels down.
“The council seem to have come to their decision last month on the basis of a short presentation: here are the facts now follow the science and vote. A number of members called for an amendment to allow for consultation but they were unsuccessful. What the science did was to identify the risk, not come up with a solution.
“Did the council members fear that they could be held personally responsible in the future if they voted against a move with the stated aim of making the game safer? That they would be liable if injured players sued?”
A report into the RFU’s 2019 trial concluded: “Legislating to lower the height of the tackle meant that tacklers made contact with the ball-carrier’s head and neck 30 per cent less often. This did not influence concussion incidence rates. Tacklers in the lowered tackle height setting suffered more concussions than did tacklers in the standard height setting.”
Why should it be any different four years on? Because of the subsequent legal action by former players suffering early onset dementia? In a five-week old year which has seen a number of unions mired in administrative chaos, a question being asked is does the game know where it’s going?
“I love my club but I am starting to hate the game,” wrote one Twitter user in a debate on the RFU’s move. “It’s fast-tracked my retire plan, unfortunately,” read a response. “Last season for me. RIP rugby.”
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