Rugby Brain Injuries
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@Crucial said in Rugby Brain Injuries:
Simple answer to decrease head injuries is to decrease collisions. Not get rid of them entirely, just reduce the times they can happen. Especially the unnecessary ones.
And you have to show people how they have to play the game. Shift tackles below the nipple line, reward chop tackles, aggressively police 'tackled players' - if you go down with contact, that's it - and change how people can play the ball to avoid delayed passes off the deck. Retrospectively ping people who go higher and the ref misses it.
you have to fundamentally change the risk/reward calculus for players nad coaches to change. Right now tackling high with impact makes sense, and chop tackles make no sense for defenders. That hsa to change.
You see how broken our game is that choke tackles have become a thing. Tells you how hard it is to get the ball back by other means (forcing an unintentional maul)
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The Pita Alatini and Andrew Merthans combination was pretty dammed good at avoiding collisions, lots of shouting of "touch ref" and the scrabbling of ankles whilst lying on the ground was observed.
At their time widely lambasted, but maybe they were just ahead of their time??
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@Windows97 said in Rugby Brain Injuries:
The Pita Alatini and Andrew Merthans combination was pretty dammed good at avoiding collisions, lots of shouting of "touch ref" and the scrabbling of ankles whilst lying on the ground was observed.
At their time widely lambasted, but maybe they were just ahead of their time??
I never thought of a Alatini as a particularly poor defender. If you'd mentioned Mauger was ahead of his time I'd fully agree - as seen in this picture:
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Just announced today, but Jason Long is giving up both rugby and speedway due to ongoing concussion issues
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@nzzp said in Rugby Brain Injuries:
@Crucial said in Rugby Brain Injuries:
IMO clear direction around an expectation of a bind to join a ruck will cut down the flying missiles at exposed players.
change from impact to more wrestling style - it's not a bad thing, still a good contest. I argued with someone about Bundee Aki red card -he's had years of being coached to be a human missile, so when it goes slightly wrong it's a disaster (always very high risk)
Yep, one thing I think that can resolve the head injury issues, plus a whole host of other issues in the game, is to turn the contest for space over the ball at the breakdown effectively into a pushing / wrestling contest - much like it used to be in the amateur days where it was effectively 8 forwards trying to push the other 8 forwards off the space over the ball. The starting point for that is to remove the jackler / ban all hands on the ball at the tackle - i honestly don't know how you do that, but IMO the jackler has effectively forced the human missile because that's practically the only way to get him off the ball
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@Stockcar86 said in Rugby Brain Injuries:
Just announced today, but Jason Long is giving up both rugby and speedway due to ongoing concussion issues
Sorry. I need to ask: who?
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@booboo He has been the NZ Champion in the Superstock class of speedway racing in NZ, superstocks being the most popular class with the best part of between 150 drivers turning up each year to contest the title. In addition he has been on the podium a couple of other times which is no mean feat as deliberate crashing is permitted and encouraged so even qualifying for the 26 car final (raced over three points scoring heats) is no mean feat let alone podiuming when being a "name" driver see you with a big target on your back just awaiting attacks from other competitors intent on eliminating you from contention. In addition he has also won the NZ Superstock Grand Prix along with the North Island Champs and the World 240cc and the World 248cc Championships so we are talking something approaching Lewis Hamilton like status here.
On the rugby side he has been in the HB Magpies squad for a fair while, mainly as a back up prop, but has had a number of starts as well. He is currently employed, and has been for a number of years now, as the HBRFU's Community Partnership Manager so is well thought of and is clearly no mug. To see him having to retire from competitive sport at such a young age is very disappointing.
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@booboo Sorry, also forgot to mention he has Captained the HB Hawkeyes Superstock Team to winning the National Teams Championships at least twice before crowds approaching 20,000 in Palmerston North. This is about as close as you can get to ultimate warfare where four cars from each Track race off against each other with the sole intention of getting one of their team mates across the finish line first. As you can probably guess there are some brutal crashes used trying to achieve that goal. It can take a lot of luck, not to mention incredible amounts of skill to win that event. To win you must negotiate at least four races any of which can eliminate you and your team with unfixable car damage at any given moment.
There are a couple of other lesser Teams Championships where Jason has taken part but for the life of me cannot remember if he has been part of the winning team in those as really only the Palm Nth based one is what every remembers and gives the passionate supporters (and they really are passionate) of the winning team something to boast about for the next twelve months!
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@Higgins He is one of only a couple of drivers who has won the grand slam in Superstock racing. NZ Champ, North Island Champ, NZ Grand Prix Champ, World 240's Champ, Superstock teams champ, and Superstock Nationals Teams Champ (last 2 in the HB Hawkeyes Team)
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@Stockcar86 Thanks for confirming that. Guess I will probably run into you sometime tonight at Meeanee? Guess I must have thought he had also taken out the 248cc's in Palm Nth but he must have been eliminated by some sort of back luck to prevent him annexing that event too!
