The sling tackle is highlighting some issues that have come to the fore in recent years.
Firstly, umpires consistently fail to give a free kick for incorrect disposal. Richards just let the ball go when Schulz tackled and it fell to the ground. Once upon a time this was a free kick. Actually it still is, just that it is very rarely paid. The one in fifty that is paid occasionally turns a game, but only because it is so rare.
Gibbs pinned Gray’s arms and held the ball in. This used to be a ball-up. When I played footy in olden times, you tackled to get a free for incorrect disposal and you didn’t want a ball up, you wanted the free. So you didn’t try to pin anyone down, you just tackled them and grabbed them around the hips. Tthey were forced to dispose of the ball and you pressured them so they would stuff up the disposal. This action now elicits a weakly-defined play-on call.
Tackling is now about forcing a ball-up. We call it a stoppage and every coach in the competition is wanting to force hundreds of stoppages every game so his chess pieces can set up in their starting points or whatever other nonsense term that they have for it.
There is no point is chasing a free by tackling any more. When you tackle someone, you are more likely to tackle a Selwood-clone high or be dragged forward by a Priddis-clone and give away the free rather than receive one when they throw away the ball like it was yesterday’s lunch leftovers . In any case, if you don’t pin the arms in your tackle, they just stand up, look around for loose team-mates, put the kettle on while they assess options and take the best one. Again, in the olden days, that was holding the ball. Now it is a career-stopper for the tackler, who gets dragged by his coach for not pinning the arms back.
The textbook tackle today is the tackle that pins at least one arm, turns the player over so you don’t fall in his back and drags him down so he can’t rejoin the fray when the umpire inevitably calls “play on, it was knocked free in the tackle”. The effort required to drag the player down almost certainly means the tackler will fall to the ground, so he had better make sure that the guy with the ball stays down too.
Guess what that is? Yep, sling tackle. Concussion here we come.
If they just paid a free for incorrect disposal none of this would happen and we would have a much smaller number of stoppages and fewer concussions.
The game was much more dangerous in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. The concussion injuries were rarely caused by tackles, they were caused by shirtfronts, bumps, shepherds that attacked the would-be tackler, hits behind play, hits in play, misdirected spoils that connected with head and not ball, pre-meditated punches disguised as spoils that hit the head instead of the ball, pre-meditated punches that were…………well, just premediated punches. Never tackles, though, never tackles.
All this other stuff has been outlawed. No-one not named Buddy Franklin gets away with any of those things any more.
Just pay the free kick for holding the ball/incorrect disposal and that will go away too.
Firstly, umpires consistently fail to give a free kick for incorrect disposal. Richards just let the ball go when Schulz tackled and it fell to the ground. Once upon a time this was a free kick. Actually it still is, just that it is very rarely paid. The one in fifty that is paid occasionally turns a game, but only because it is so rare.
Gibbs pinned Gray’s arms and held the ball in. This used to be a ball-up. When I played footy in olden times, you tackled to get a free for incorrect disposal and you didn’t want a ball up, you wanted the free. So you didn’t try to pin anyone down, you just tackled them and grabbed them around the hips. Tthey were forced to dispose of the ball and you pressured them so they would stuff up the disposal. This action now elicits a weakly-defined play-on call.
Tackling is now about forcing a ball-up. We call it a stoppage and every coach in the competition is wanting to force hundreds of stoppages every game so his chess pieces can set up in their starting points or whatever other nonsense term that they have for it.
There is no point is chasing a free by tackling any more. When you tackle someone, you are more likely to tackle a Selwood-clone high or be dragged forward by a Priddis-clone and give away the free rather than receive one when they throw away the ball like it was yesterday’s lunch leftovers . In any case, if you don’t pin the arms in your tackle, they just stand up, look around for loose team-mates, put the kettle on while they assess options and take the best one. Again, in the olden days, that was holding the ball. Now it is a career-stopper for the tackler, who gets dragged by his coach for not pinning the arms back.
The textbook tackle today is the tackle that pins at least one arm, turns the player over so you don’t fall in his back and drags him down so he can’t rejoin the fray when the umpire inevitably calls “play on, it was knocked free in the tackle”. The effort required to drag the player down almost certainly means the tackler will fall to the ground, so he had better make sure that the guy with the ball stays down too.
Guess what that is? Yep, sling tackle. Concussion here we come.
If they just paid a free for incorrect disposal none of this would happen and we would have a much smaller number of stoppages and fewer concussions.
The game was much more dangerous in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. The concussion injuries were rarely caused by tackles, they were caused by shirtfronts, bumps, shepherds that attacked the would-be tackler, hits behind play, hits in play, misdirected spoils that connected with head and not ball, pre-meditated punches disguised as spoils that hit the head instead of the ball, pre-meditated punches that were…………well, just premediated punches. Never tackles, though, never tackles.
All this other stuff has been outlawed. No-one not named Buddy Franklin gets away with any of those things any more.
Just pay the free kick for holding the ball/incorrect disposal and that will go away too.
