Source :- THE AGE NEWS
The screws, titanium plates and tightrope wire used to repair Jackson Hastings’ right ankle are a reminder of the danger of hip-drop tackles.
Playing for Wests Tigers against Brisbane late in the 2022 season, Hastings took an innocuous hit-up and, after a three-man tackle, lay writhing on the turf in agony, his lower leg a mess.
“I ruptured my syndesmosis completely and had a fair fracture in my leg,” the playmaker recalled 12 months later, after joining Newcastle.
“It did a bit of nerve damage, so I can’t really feel the sole of my foot too much … it’s something I’m going to have to deal with for the rest of my life”.
Hastings will empathise with Dragons winger Mathew Feagai, who suffered a similar injury playing against Manly last week and now faces the same process – surgery followed by months of physio.
In both cases, the players deemed responsible, Brisbane’s Pat Carrigan and Manly’s Toafofoa Sipley, were referred straight to the NRL judiciary and suspended for four weeks.
And while Carrigan and Sipley were remorseful, and there was no intent from either to cause injury, serious injury did result.
There was no debate about whether they would serve time out of the game. The only question was how long.
In many other hip-drop cases, however, it’s not so cut and dried.
It’s been almost five years since the NRL first noticed an insidious trend creeping into the game, prompting a warning to all clubs that the match-review panel had identified “an increasing incidence of a tackling technique which could pose a serious player safety risk to the legs of an attacking player”.
The hip-drop – like the grapple, the crusher, the chicken wing, the cannonball, and the rolling pin before it – was soon outlawed.
Yet, it is still causing confusion, even for the most qualified judges.
Wayne Bennett, who has seen a tackle or two in his day, is among those who have admitted to being perplexed.
“I’m not sure what a hip-drop is to be honest with you,” Bennett said recently after fullback Jye Gray was fined $1000 for a hip-drop on Cronulla’s Siosifa Talakai.
“I’m not saying that sarcastically. It’s a pretty confusing lot of rules around that. I’m not a real good judge of hip-drop tackles.”
Bennett added on Thursday that perhaps it is time to “take it out of the ref’s hands and the video ref’s hands, because it’s just too difficult and it’s happening too quickly. Charge them the next morning.”
Tigers coach Benji Marshall echoed his former mentor after Samuela Fainu was penalised and placed on report – only to be subsequently cleared – of a hip-drop on Parramatta’s Kelma Tuilagi on Monday.
“I don’t know if that was a hip-drop,” Marshall said. “From what I saw, I didn’t think it was. I agree with what Wayne said. I don’t really know what a hip-drop is any more.”
Sydney Roosters coach Trent Robinson found his team on the flipside of hip-drop inconsistency when he lost forward Nat Butcher to a knee injury early in his team’s loss to Penrith, but no on-field action was taken against the perpetrator, Mitch Kenny, who was subsequently suspended for two games.
Robinson had a contrasting viewpoint to Bennett and Marshall, saying “it’s not that difficult” to categorise a hip-drop tackle.
But if the coaches can’t agree, what hope is there for players, or fans, or the judiciary?
According to the NRL, it’s not all that complicated and can be summarised in three words: grip, twist, drop.
A hip-drop offence occurs when a defender grabs onto a ball-carrier (either one or two hands), and they then use that grip to pivot, or swing, or rotate behind, or to the side of, the attacker. The third, and most dangerous, indicator is that the defender has then dropped his (or her) weight directly onto the opponent’s leg or legs, either from behind or the side.
Where confusion seems to occur is when an attacker powers through the line, and a diving defender makes a desperate tackle from behind, or to the side.
The tackler is entitled to fall on the legs of the attacker, providing their body weight has first been grounded. In other words, it’s OK to make a diving, sliding tackle if the defender’s knees are on the turf.
In contrast, tackles in which defenders become airborne and use their grip and body weight to drag an opponent down are likely to be frowned upon.
NRL head of elite competitions Graham Annesley has dissected hip-drops on numerous occasions in the past, but this time said: “There’s probably not much more I can add … our position hasn’t changed.”
The governing body released a three-minute 30-second video explainer in 2023 to clarify “what is and isn’t a hip-drop tackle”.
The video includes footage of several incidents that clearly define the contrast between tackles that are acceptable and those that breach the rules.
While the descriptions of hip-drop tackles can seem straightforward, in reality rugby league is an unpredictable sport where accidents can, and do, occur.
Players make mistakes, and so do match officials. If there is any confusion, it is perhaps more to do with human error in interpretation than any lack of definition.
Roosters coach Robinson maintains the hip-drop is “really simple” to define and identify.
“People are going in with their right shoulder to make a tackle and they rotate their hip and swing onto their left hip, and drop their weight onto the leg of an opponent,” Robinson said.
“It’s not that difficult to see. And if you swing your hip and drop all your weight onto that, now it may be on the hip or it may be on the leg, but that’s a hip-drop tackle … really, it’s not that difficult.”
If Roosters enforcer Victor Radley is any indication, players understand what a hip-drop is and are making every effort to avoid such scenarios. They don’t want to cause injuries, and they don’t want to cop suspensions.
“I’m not confused personally,” said Radley, who is no stranger to the judiciary process.
“Actually I got put on report on the weekend and was given a warning for it. So I know what a hip-drop is.
“When I get under pretty extreme fatigue, I feel like that’s when I do it. So that’s what I’m going to try and work on to make sure I’m not in that position.
“But as for everyone else, yeah, I don’t know.
“It just is what it is. Got to get on with it.”
Michael Chammas and Andrew “Joey” Johns dissect the upcoming NRL round, plus the latest footy news, results and analysis. Sign up for the Sin Bin newsletter.
