Injury Carnage Caused By 6 Agains

B-Train

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Last season we saw more long term injuries to key players than we have in years.

Through the first three rounds this season, we've seen another increase in HIA's and long term injuries across the competition. Some teams are struggling to end the game with a player left on the bench.

I directly attribute this to the huge increase in the speed of the game caused by this six again bullshit. Players bodies can only handle so much intensity. They can't play 26 rounds of Origin game speed.

The NRL didn't think any of this through when they made these pathetic haphazard rule changes and of course they won't acknowledge that it's a factor now.

The six again has ruined the flow and spectacle of games for many people but now it's robbing teams of key players every game. At this rate of carnage, finals teams will be playing Flegg players come September just to field a lineup. It's amazing how much they've fucked this comp.
 

foREVerA7X

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Too many injuries to high profile players too.

I've always thought the 6 again should only be active if you're in the attacking half. If your not, whistle and penalty as per. What good is a 6 again on tackle 1 on your own 10m line?
 

B-Train

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Too many injuries to high profile players too.

I've always thought the 6 again should only be active if you're in the attacking half. If your not, whistle and penalty as per. What good is a 6 again on tackle 1 on your own 10m line?
Exactly. They artificially sped up the game when it was already fast enough and they planned to further reduce the interchange which would have opened it up more.

Getting rid of scrums would have been enough of a change. Instead with the six agains, players get no rest throughout a game to be able to pace themselves. Their bodies are under constant attack and it's going to lead to more carnage.

The RLPA is so pissweak for allowing all of these changes without proper discussion and research. I don't see the NRL going back and admitting their mistake but I hope there's one person with a brain in Rugby League that can point out what the real issue is.
 

GoTheDoggies

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Our club needs to do everything in it's power to hound out V'landys this fucking piece of shit rule change has set us back even further in our rebuild. It is also causing blow out scores and injury concerns.
 

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Last year was perfect this year is too quick
 

B-Train

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Round three of the NRL has been dominated by an alarming number of injuries and concussions which have renewed calls for the league to consider bringing in an 18th man medical substitute.

The AFL have introduced injury replacements this year, sparking dialogue on whether rugby league should follow suit.

New rules brought into the NRL have increased the speed of the game, prompting immediate reactions from Parramatta players during a trial game against Penrith.

Cronulla were left without a player on the bench, with Fox League’s Jake Duke reporting Sharks players told him post-game they had “not seen anything like it.”

He added that the Sharks did not make one official interchange for a reason other than injury or concussion, describing it as “staggering.”

Fox League’s Andrew Voss said there is a need for the NRL to ramp up discussions on a possible medical sub

This is going to open discussions,” he said in commentary.

“Is it time for an 18th man? If you have at least two HIAs do you keep an 18th man on the bench? They’ve now had three players succumb to HIAs here, Canberra had a couple earlier today.

“We talk about player welfare, Canberra had a bloke with a fractured rib in Curtis Scott. If someone [from Cronulla] is injured in this half they’ll have to play on [with 12]. We talk about welfare, that is the intention of the HIA.”

The possibility of a medical substitute has been met with varying reactions from both players and coaches within the rugby league world.

Sharks forward Wade Graham, who did not finish Saturday’s game after failing a HIA test, told reporters earlier this month it could have a place in the game if addressing injuries or concussions caused by foul play.

Sharks forward Wade Graham, who did not finish Saturday’s game after failing a HIA test, told reporters earlier this month it could have a place in the game if addressing injuries or concussions caused by foul play.

We could look at it if it was foul play from the other team,” he said.

But he warned against any change that would dramatically alter the “toughness of the game.”

“Rugby league is a collision sport, a war of attrition, it is part of the fabric of the game,” he added.

“To battle through pain and keep on going. That is the game I knew and learnt to play in and you don’t want to see that taken out of the game.

But I’m always willing to look at ideas and have conversations... but I think the toughness in the game is something we should admire not take away.”

He also added that the NRL would need to address whether it could be manipulated, asking: “How do you police people taking advantage of the extra sub on the bench?”

Roosters coach Trent Robinson though revealed he had been giving the issue plenty of thought after Ryan Matterson and Jake Friend were sidelined by head knocks in the opening rounds of the season.

It’s an interesting one,” he told reporters last week.

“What the NRL has done this year is bring in the independent doctor within the 11-day period. They’ve made a small step to taking it out of the hands of the wins and losses of the clubs, to say we need to do a bit more.

“People want the attrition of our game and the hardness of our game, and we also need to protect the players. That’s where there is a gap in between the two – if you can’t finish the game, even if its not foul play, that’s like any other injury you’ve got to get on with it.

“On the other side, we have moved into a space in the last few years where it’s a real grey area. People don’t know what a head injury does like they do a hamstring injury.

how do we protect the game and its players?

“That was an example where we sit there and we go, would that have helped? That’s up to the NRL to continue to look at.”

Cooper Cronk, Benji Marshall and Mick Ennis questioned the link between the spate of injuries in Round 3 and whether it is an anomaly or a sign that the game needs to take action.

“It is just fatigue,” Marshall said on Fox League.

“When you are fatigued your brain still thinks it can do the same things as when you are not tired.

“When you throw your hand out to make a tackle and you do your pec or a shoulder or a hamstring. So fatigue is going to be a big factor in that.

“But in terms of the injuries you can’t just say that something is making it happen this round. To me it is just an unlucky round.”

“Out of the 20 injuries, seven of them were concussions, so that is not going to change whether you have a faster game or a
slower game,” Cronk said.

“But you wonder though if the fatigue in the game is playing a role as Benji said,” Ennis interjected.

“You wonder if guys are making decisions under fatigue and putting their head in positions that they wouldn’t.”

“Yes that’s true, but how many times have we had a bench cleared out?” Cronk countered.

“Not a lot.

“What the NRL need to do is crunch the numbers and how many times teams are left with maybe two bench players because there is always going to be one injury in most games.

When you go down to two and they can’t come back, but the NRL need to crunch the numbers because today for me was in isolation and we haven’t had this many crazy injuries before.

“So we shouldn’t react harshly to one day.”
However Ennis believes the NRL need to do their due diligence on the possible link between rule changes and the increasing NRL casualty ward.

“I think it is going to take a weekend like we have had to raise the concerns of what we saw in that 40 minutes,” Ennis said.

“We don’t just have a weekend to get through. John Morris has a whole season to get through. They have to play the Cowboys next week.

“The Raiders are decimated and have to play next week. I know we have squads, but we have implemented all these rules and we need to have a look at it and see if it is because of all these rule changes.

“Players have had to play a full 40 minutes and put their bodies through things they haven’t had to do before. It could be dangerous for the players.”
 

B-Train

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I'm glad Ennis and Benji can see the same problem I'm talking about. Too bad the NRL are oblivious.
 

Dogzof95

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The NRL Doesn’t care about players it cares about revenue. But by the rate that they’re going we’ll end up watching an entire reserve grade side in first grade. Every sport has opportunities during the game where players rest, except this sport!

Like the saying goes, you pay peanuts you get monkeys, but in this case they have puppets running the show with no fucken idea!
 

Heckler

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Peter Vlandys is detrimental to the fabric of the game and that is the product itself. He has good commercial acumen, and yes, he reduced 2 refs back to 1, led us through Covid and is made to look like a superstar because we got one over the AFL. My gripe with him is he purposely changed the rules to suit his agenda with the betting companies at the players and fans expense. In all honesty, I thought David Gallop was far more better than him in comparison.
 

Northern Beaches dog

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Also the change in rules to increase the time of the ball in play. Ie, no more scrums from kicks in touch etc.
As a general rule of thumb, the more the ball is in play the higher the chance of injury.
 

Riggs80

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Every year We hear about more injuries - last year and this year impacted by covid with pre season

the state of grounds has been shit past few years

maybe if the coaches didn’t spend so much time doing wrestling techniques there would be less injuries - look at any tackle , there are arms , legs tangled everywhere that is the true reason for injuries
 

B-Train

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Every year We hear about more injuries - last year and this year impacted by covid with pre season

the state of grounds has been shit past few years

maybe if the coaches didn’t spend so much time doing wrestling techniques there would be less injuries - look at any tackle , there are arms , legs tangled everywhere that is the true reason for injuries
With the way the refs are calling held after two milliseconds and giving six agains, there's almost no wrestle in the tackles anymore.

I agree that a lot of the pitches are terrible, but there's a reason why we always see more players injured during Origin and that's because of the speed and intensity of those games and players overworking their bodies.

They've made every game Oztag on speed and way too fast which is leading to the ball being in play more and more fatigue which increases the chances of injuries.
 

Papa Emeritus

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There is absolutely no proof that the changes to the game are leading to more injuries. There is no where near enough time and data yet. The game is far more interesting than it has been for a while imo.
I do think the repeat sets are sometimes pretty dodgy though, I don't understand why they don't have to announce to someone via a headset what the reason is so it can be relayed to the tv audience.
 

B-Train

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V’landys denies new rules to blame for injury crisis but players think otherwise

Australian Rugby League Commission boss Peter V’landys believes the game’s new rules are not a factor in an alarming early-season injury crisis, but players are convinced the hectic pace of the NRL this year is contributing to the carnage and have called for the introduction of a concussion substitute.

After a brutal weekend that saw the Sharks play more than half a game with no players on their bench and the Raiders only have one interchange for over an hour in their loss to the Warriors, the Rugby League Players Association on Sunday called for the urgent introduction of an extra substitute.

The ARLC will discuss the idea on Tuesday, with any change able to be implemented overnight and expected to cater for players who can’t finish a match due to concussion.

While RLPA boss Clint Newton is expected to receive support for his 18th-man push, he is at odds with V’landys on the potential cause of a remarkable round of injuries, in which close to 20 players failed to finish the first six matches through injury.

The first three rounds of the 2021 season have already seen 17 game-ending head knocks, compared to 11 at the same point in 2020. Over the past two seasons, the rate of concussion has been 3.6 per round but that has increased to 5.6 so far this year.

V’landys told the Herald on Sunday he didn’t believe the new interpretations designed to speed up the game – including six-again calls for offside infringements and a reduction in scrums – were causing the spate of injuries.

The RLPA has requested year-to-date data on injuries from the NRL.

“What we have said is by increasing fatigue you are increasing the chances [of injury],” Newton said. “We’ll let the data help us fully form our views, but one of the main contributing factors has to be the fact we’ve increased the intensity of matches.

“Why is there such lionising of fatigue? Why is it so critical? How much is too much? And have we crossed that line?

“We’re fully cognisant we’re in the entertainment business. We are also in the human being industry as well. We’ve got to make sure we’re not putting the game’s greatest asset – the players – at risk. We’re never going to be in a position to eliminate injuries, but where is the line in the sand?”

The NSW Cup has already introduced a concussion substitute for any player unable to finish a match due to a head knock, while the AFL mandated a medical interchange player only days before the start of their season.

While talk of an 18th man has swirled around the game for years, it’s believed the ARLC will closely examine a proposal for a spare player to be introduced to a game in the case of multiple players being ruled out of a single match due to concussion.

The idea has the support of Melbourne supercoach Craig Bellamy, who argued the Sharks (three concussions) and Raiders (two) shouldn’t be disadvantaged for taking precautions with their players.

“I think we need to do something where if we have three HIAs or two HIAs and they can’t come back on, if we had an 18th man that could come on … it would take the burden off,” Bellamy told Sky Sports Radio. “As the season goes on with the pace of the game there will be more and more fatigue.”

But Newton said the 18th man would not solve all of the injury problems, which this weekend alone have seen Luke Keary, Mitchell Moses, Joseph Tapine and Wade Graham unable to finish matches.

“The 18th man is an important one to introduce as soon as possible, but it’s not the answer,” Newton said.

V’landys forecast only a month ago he would be willing to tweak rules if warranted and showed last year during the COVID crisis the NRL would react swiftly if required.

“We will have a look at the 18th man because if everyone does the right thing and protects the welfare of the player, naturally there’s going to be these instances where we might have a spate of [players ruled out of a game because of concussion],” V’landys said.

“This is only one round, but we monitor all the statistics with injuries game after game. If there was something to happen, it would be for the freak situations like we had with Cronulla and Canberra. There would belts and braces on it for emergencies like we had on the weekend.

“It’s actually pleasing the clubs are adhering to the [concussion] protocols, which are a lot more vigilant. Previously, where players may have went back on, they are being subject to a much more cautious approach, which I absolutely welcome.”
 

B-Train

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I'm glad coaches, players and the RLPA are finally calling them out and pointing out the real issue.

An 18th man is the least they can do but the way they've changed the fabric of the game and the horrible job V'landys has done haphazardly changing the rulea of the sport on a whim are huge concerns for the future of the code in my opinion.

As someone pointed out, the average margin is 16 points so far this season. Melbourne, Penrith and Souths are all $1.07 to win their games this week and it's only round 4. Who wants to watch this garbage? Upsets are part of what made Rugby League great but now the top teams can't lose. Penrith haven't lost a regular season game since round 5 last season. They're good, but not that good!! At this rate, fans of the bottom eight clubs will walk away from the game. It's all so short sighted..
 
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