Random crackdown generator

Tino Fa'asuamaleaui got cited for daring to be tackled by a smaller opponent, again.

If you know anything about the NRL, you’ll know that the most in vogue word in the rugby league dictionary isn’t ‘momentum’ or ‘tribalism’ or even ‘he can’t disappear.”

OK that last one was a phrase but I was scrambling for a snappy third example.

Anyway, no, the most in vogue word that actually doesn’t mean anything in the rugby league multiverse is…crackdown. Now I’ll pause to let that sink in.

Every year there’s a crackdown or point of focus or whatever other sparkly term you want to place on noticing a trend and then doing two fifths of fuck all to actually correct it, if indeed it’s something that needs correcting at all.

This can extend from dodgy ‘wrestling’ tactics in tackles like chicken wings, cannonballs, grapples and crushers, to an abundance of high tackles, both meek and murdersome (who remembers the infamous Magic Round sin bin-a-palooza of 2021?).

Anecdotally it does feel like there’s been a rise in noticeable aberrations in the way rugby league has been played, and bandaid measures used to combat such heinous skullduggery, such as sin binning defenders for being marginally offside on attacking scrums, as an example.

Of course, there has been an increase in the subterfuge more clued-in teams use around the ruck, especially in scramble situations, because the advent of the six again in lieu of an actual penalty has reduced the perceived risk of committing such an infraction.

Teams would be more inclined to get off the ball carrier or not push their luck with linespeed if they ran the risk of actually conceding a penalty, rather than just an extra couple of tackles to then bullshit their way through as the opportunity cost of being properly disciplined is more or less offset.

But I digress.

Let’s talk about raised forearms.

For some reason, there’s been a heightened sense of anxiety around the traps lately as the amount of instances of defenders coming off second best as the result of a leadnig forearm or elbow from a ball carrier.

Much like leading with your knees as a ball carrier, you’re not allowed to lead with your forearms in an unnatural position to initiate forceful contact with a defender. Seems simple enough.

The problem is there’s been, by my count (and I admittedly don’t watch every game of footy because I have other interests sue me), a couple of instances of the worst case scenario and everyone has lost their minds.

Take this weekend alone.

Both Selwyn Cobbo and Tino Fa’asuamaleaui were cited for illegal contact with the forearm to the face of a defender. Cobbo got binned, Tino ended up just on report. Let’s examine the two incidents.

Note: Substack and Twitter are still ‘on a break’ and not working together so a link to the tweet with the relevant video is the best I can offer, sorry if you don’t have Twitter, you’re not missing out on much anyway.

Cobbo’s sin bin vs. Bulldogs: https://twitter.com/FOXNRL/status/1680092203585093632

Cobbo (who hilariously was playing over half of this game as a middle forward for shits and giggles) runs at Toby Sexton and clumsily reaches out to fend him off. It’s an awkward technique, for sure, but the fend starts in the chest region and as Sexton clings on for life (as is his wont), the fend works up and collects a bit of face.

Last time I checked the rules, you’re allowed to give someone the old fashioned don’t argue right in the mush.

What cost Cobbo here is two things. First, his forearm makes contact with Sexton’s neck and jaw area. It’s incidental and minimal, yes, and I certainly think it’s nothing, but it’s worth noting for the next point.

Secondly, Sexton ends up in a bloody mess on the carpet, disoriented and confused, and would later fail his HIA. The Bunker reviewed the incident, saw that contact I mentioned earlier, saw Sexton looking like he’d fought and lost to a cherry pie at the Alabama State Fair, and marched Cobbo for ten.

The freeze frame looks bad, but that’s why video exists and the Bunker isn’t simply handed a collection of photos and tasked with creating a story (actually that might be the entire process based on this but anyway).

Now, one plus one doesn’t always equal two, and on one replay it was clear to me and most other fellow handsome rugby league observers that the reason Sexton had his nose smeared halfway across his face was because of the accidental knee he copped from Cobbo as the big winger/middle forward (still funny) fell over the top of the half’s attempted tackle.

The Bunker either missed that crucial detail or decided to omit it from calculation altogether. I’m not sure what’s more worrying, but alas.

The Bunker ruled on injury outcome rather than the act, which is hardly a new and isolated thing, it happens all the time, especially for grading things like hop drop tackles (Carrigan on Hastings last season), but when the injury was because of a third, accidental and legal factor, it creates a worrying blurred line.

Hilariously, because Sexton was off because of ‘foul play’, the Dogs could then activate their 18th man, Fa’amanu Brown.

They lost 44-24.

Anyway, the Tino incident.

(Because he wasn’t binned Fox NRL didn’t bother tweeting the video of it, how rude).

Tino has become a bit of a poster boy for the raised forearm epidemic, and now opposition fans and commentators are hyperaware everytime he takes a carry. The penalty he conceded for his carry against Mitchell Moses is the third such incident this season (that I can recall anyway), following previous transgressions against Reed Mahoney and Api Koroisau.

In the previous two cases, Fa’asuamaleaui escaped suspension (he was fined $1800 for the Mahoney incident), and when asked about the furore following the match against the Tigers that left Koroisau with a broken jaw and subsequently ruled him out of the rest of the State of Origin series for NSW, Tino said this.

"Obviously there has been a couple of times where the players put their head in the wrong position and they have come off second best.

But like I said I am just going out there to run as hard as I can and that's my aim for the team to get quick play-the-balls.

I think it is the media making me more worried than anything just building it up.”

Fa’asuamaleaui is one of the stars of the competition, an affable and likeable personality, his childlike innocence in full display on the field, especially during encounters with the referee caught on the microphone. “I’m not yelling at you sir, it’s just loud in here” he said to Chris Butler during a conversation against the Eels yesterday.

His honesty can also be disarming, like taking responsibility for poor decisions in post game press conferences as the captain of an emerging side, a fledgling leader himself still in the infancy of his rugby league career.

But that charm hides a nasty streak that makes him one of the game’s most damaging and brutalising front rowers. Without that mean streak you’re nothing as a front rower, and you’ll be chewed up and spat out. Look at the likes of James Fisher-Harris, Payne Haas and Joe Tapine. The upper echelon of props in the game, all certified madmen, playing with unbridled aggression.

As Tino so succintly mentioned, it is a contact sport, and accidents do happen. I don’t think his ball carrying technique is any more left field and outwardly dangerous than any other forward in the game. Every ball carrier leads with some variety of the shoulder/forearm to varying degrees of protrusion.

If you look at the trend in players feeling violated by Fa’asuamaleaui, you’ll notice one thing. Here at Beyond The Goalpost we are definitely pro short kings in footy, but the reality is a Mahoney/Koroisau/Moses trifecta is hardly winning any 3x3 basketball tournaments.

Tino, at a hulking 1.97m (or just under 6ft, 6in if you prefer the old style), towers over his prey and it’s only natural these little men will be caught in compromising positions.

Anyway, the actual incident on Moses is somewhat laughable. Like Cobbo’s, Tino’s fend starts in the chest region of Moses and might slip up and make marginal contact with something resembling the neck or head area. The ref was conned by a sell job from Moses, and maybe Tino’s prior history.

Size is a natural competitive advantage in sport. Legislating for size creates a dangerous precedent and tips an already skewed scale even further towards a “small ball” game that favours speed and compactness over the giants of the game.

These Tino incidents feel like punishment for natural causes, a penalty for daring to be bigger than the man tackling you. How dare you, the big man, dare play smart and run at the mouse in the house daring to defend in the line. Run at someone your own size you big bully.

A crackdown on an incidental outcome as a result of a natural footy mismatch. Next they’ll ban kicking the ball too long.

**

A FAVOUR TO ASK

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