(06-22-2015, 02:48 AM)cookie2 link Wrote:Paul, in my past experiences the only way to remove the risk of what happened to Gray is to ban any forceful tackling altogether. If you go in with any kind of forceful impact there will always a danger of the guy being knocked to the ground before he has the chance to brace himself to absorb the impact - that's just the way it is unfortunately. The only way to significantly reduce the risk is to institute some form of standing tackle whereby if the guys forward momentum is stopped he is deemed tackled.
This all needs very careful and thorough and discussion as I think we are in danger of altering the game to the detriment of its spectacle if we rush to react too swiftly to this. All options need to be looked at to protect players from potentially harmful concussion but let's not ruin the game in doing that. Hell, we and the media were only a couple of weeks ago criticising our boys for being too shy in the tackling dept.
You make some fair points cookie. It is of course a contact sport, but the contact that does occur,, and the rules and protocols that apply to it, must be seen in an evolutionary context. You can no longer iron someone out, you can no longer drive your shoulders into someone's head with maximum force (see my link to Lethal's article), and so on. We now have both anecdotal and medical evidence that highlights the dangers that comes from excessively forceful contact to the head over a long period of time, and we need to act on it. My enjoyment of the game would not be compromised one iota if the sling tackle was banned. Of course, the implementation of such rules won't be easy, and they won't be to everyone's satisfaction. I see parallels with the spear tackle that was banned in Rugby league many years ago, and rightly so. The RL players have adapted.
I have attached a couple of links, which may only be partially related to the topic at hand, but which I thought were interesting nonetheless.
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/afl/af...6686834116
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/afl/ju...7339152556
The link to the Jude Bolton article is blocked by a subscription page. If you do o Google search for "Jude Bolton concussion", one of the links near the top should take you to the article.