Gal: What happened to Cleary was horrible, but Crossland ban is not fair
The hip drop tackle has always been around, and I don’t think we’re going to ever be able to get rid of it.
Phoenix Crossland will miss the grand final, having been suspended for four weeks for that tackle on Nathan Cleary. While what happened to Cleary is horrible, Crossland’s wasn’t even the worst hip-drop of the weekend.
Nathan Cleary suffered a horror leg injury in Sunday’s preliminary final loss to Newcastle. Getty Images
We could get rid of the spear tackle because you can train someone to drive, rather than lift. We could get rid of the chicken wing tackle because you’ve got to consciously grab someone’s arm and pull it the wrong way. We could get rid of the grapple tackle because you’ve got to consciously grab someone by the neck.
Even the cannonball – you’ve got to consciously dive at someone’s knees while he’s being held by two other players.
Thankfully, we don’t see much of those any more. But the hip drop?
With how strong and powerful some players are these days, at some point a player will run through you, momentum will take your studs off the ground, and your body will naturally fall on the back of his legs.
I think we can tell the difference between the intentional ones – there’s not many of them any more – and the accidental ones where a player is just trying to make a tackle.
I look at so many tackles these days, and I could make a case there is a hip-drop in a lot of tackles because of the way players fall. All you’re trying to do is whatever you can to get the bloke to the ground.
But because the player doesn’t get injured, we just play on.
I feel terribly sorry for Nathan Cleary. We don’t want to see him out of the game – he’s the best player in the competition – but we’ve got to understand this is a contact sport, and sometimes accidents happen. Everybody who plays the game understands that.
And I feel sorry for Crossland, who’s been probably the first player sent off because of a hip-drop, and now he’s been suspended for four weeks because of the outcome, not the action.
On Friday night, Victor Radley’s tackle on Herbie Farnworth was a more traditional hip-drop, and he got away with a fine – and can play in the grand final – because the player wasn’t injured.
Toby Couchman was suspended for four weeks – but not sent off – for a hip-drop tackle that snapped J’maine Hopgood’s ACL and ended his season in round three.
The sizes of players is another factor.
Imagine an Addin Fonua-Blake or a Tyson Frizell running as hard as they possibly can at Reed Mahoney. If Mahoney makes as good contact as he possibly can, he might win that tackle 50 per cent of the time.
But the other 50 per cent, they’re probably going to be dragging him through, which means with momentum, Mahoney’s body is naturally going to end up behind them, and then possibly on the back of their legs. You can’t stop that.
Cleary threw a dummy, ran through Crossland, and then momentum took Crossland onto the back of Cleary’s legs.
It’s an inevitability and I don’t know if it can ever be fully eradicated from the game.
So we need to come up with a better system because it’s not fair one bloke gets suspended for four weeks and will miss a grand final, when two nights earlier someone did the same thing and only got fined.
