Four-time premiership participant Isaac Smith says a dialogue “needs to be had” between gamers, coaches and AFL officers about tips on how to finest handle the difficulty of harmful tackles within the wake of former teammate James Sicily‘s three-match suspension.
A day after incoming AFL boss Andrew Dillon said there was “no confusion” over what players can and can’t do, Smith, final yr’s Norm Smith medallist, stated the one factor they have been certain of was that contact with opposition gamers’ heads was “out of bounds”.
But a sequence of blended returns from the AFL tribunal in current weeks, and outrage for Sicily’s three-game ban for what Smith known as “executing a tackle”, moved him name for all events to return collectively and work out a transparent approach ahead.
“As players we have been told the head is completely out of bounds and we have a duty of care to the opposition player,” Smith stated on Tuesday morning.
“But in saying that, tackling has been trained and coached a certain way for 10, 20, 30 years. Coaches are very big on taking a player to ground and locking up the ball and making sure the ball doesn’t spill and opposition are able to pick it up and score because turnovers are the No.1 scoring area in the game.
“Umpires want the play to play out so they are not blowing the whistle as quickly. I think there’s many factors to what is going on and I think we probably need to sit down as a bit of an AFL community, players, coaches and the AFL and understand exactly what we want, other than we all know we don’t want the head to be hurt, but how we are going to get there?
“I think that’s a discussion which needs to had.”
There have been 21 harmful tackles penalised by the match overview committee and tribunal this season.
Smith stated he was assured gamers may “evolve” and regulate methods to scale back that quantity, however gamers needed to know the way and extra communication was wanted.
“The players are very quick at adaptings and changing their methods and techniques,” he advised RSN.
“I think it will evolve over the next 12 or 24 months, but I don’t think we are going to get there quickly. I think it’s going to play out for a little bit longer.”
On Monday, Dillon stated the AFL wouldn’t shrink back from the security facet of the sort out clampdown and it could proceed no matter ongoing tribunal outcomes.
“What I will say about the dangerous tackles, MRO (match review officer) and our tribunal system, it‘s all about protecting the health and safety of our players,” he stated.
“And the AFL, we won‘t apologise for that.
“Any time there is avoidable head contact, we want to try and take that out of the game, so we will continue to do that.”
Originally revealed as Isaac Smith says AFL wants to provide extra readability round harmful tackles
Source: www.dailytelegraph.com.au
