World Rugby follows NRL’s lead with major law change
World Rugby has followed the NRL’s lead and banned hip drop tackles, while also outlawing ‘knee drop’ tackles from the game.
World Rugby established an expert tackle height working group before making the decision while also leaning on research from Leeds Beckett University.
Treyvon Pritchard was injured in this hip drop tackle. Stan
“The hip drop tackle, where a tackler uses their body weight to pull a player to ground and drops onto the legs of a ball carrier from behind, will be explicitly added to foul play law and will be sanctioned with at least a penalty kick,” the governing body said in a statement.
“The knee drop tackle, where a player drops to one or both knees before making a tackle, will be highlighted to players, coaches and match officials as an action already covered in law and can also be sanctioned with a penalty.”
Junior Wallabies and Queensland Reds star Treyvon Pritchard was badly injured by a hip drop tackle at this year’s under-20 world championships.
“We’re grateful to unions for raising the issue of these types of tackle with us. My thanks go to the working group and wider World Rugby team for the speed and breadth of their research and analysis. These changes show the commitment across the globe to player welfare in rugby in action,” World Rugby chairman and former Wallabies flanker Brett Robinson said.
“Once we looked at the evidence, it was clear the hip drop tackles whilst rare, could cause significant leg injuries. It was also clear that knee drop tackles were on the rise.
“Protecting player welfare is at the heart of everything that World Rugby does and once we’d reviewed the analysis we’ve acted quickly to ensure that dangerous tackles of this nature are removed from the game, starting this weekend.”
Former Ireland star Rob Kearney is the International Rugby Players Association’s representative on World Rugby’s executive board Rob Kearney.
“While a change of this nature can be challenging to manage in the short term as players, coaches and match officials adjust, this decision has been taken to protect players from potential serious injury, and that’s the right thing to do,” Kearney said.
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