Roosters prop Dylan Napa launches himself like a sonic missile at Broncos hooker Andrew McCullough, mistimes the tackle completely and collects McCullough’s jaw with his head instead of his left shoulder, leaving McCullough convulsing on the ground and then taken from the field on a medicab.
According to some former players, this is “just part of the game”.
High contact: Dylan Napa is sent to the sin bin after catching Andrew McCullouch with his head.
Napa did this to McCullough three months after launching himself like a sonic missile at Broncos forward Korbin Sims, mistiming the tackle completely, collecting Sims’ jaw with his head instead of his left shoulder, leaving Sims with a broken jaw and sidelined for six seeks.
And still, according to some former players, this is “just part of the game”.
It used to be part of the game. It’s not part of the game any longer. It can’t be if the game wants to survive, to stop its participation numbers from plummeting, to stop the AFL convincing mums and dads that it’s safer to play its code instead of another that shrugs its shoulders at tackles that amount to flying headbutts, whether they are accidental or intentional.
Napa will miss three matches after taking the early guilty plea for his grade-three dangerous contact charge. If the Roosters win in the first week of the finals, he will need to rely on his side reaching the grand final if he’s to play again this season.
Flashpoint: Dylan Napa connects with the face of Andrew McCullough.
Taking the early plea was a smart move. If the Roosters contested the charge, or even argued for a downgrading, they would surely have struggled at the judiciary.
According to the NRL, Napa and the Roosters were specifically told after the Sims tackle that if he didn’t clean up his technique and something similar happened again, he could expect a serious charge. The argument that it’s “just part of the game” wouldn’t apply.
Napa wasn’t charged for the Sims tackle by the match review committee, which at the time also saw it as “just part of the game”.
NRL chief executive Todd Greenberg saw otherwise. He stepped up and told the MRC it had made a terrible error.
Greenberg’s detractors pounced on him then and they are pouncing on him now.
They claim Napa is the victim of unnecessary interference; that Greenberg only became involved after the Sims tackle because of social media pressure, mostly from angry Broncos fans.
Greenberg can be easy to pounce on. He often deserves to be pounced on. He's quite pounce-able. But credit where it’s due: he took charge of a situation when it was needed.
That’s what leadership is. That’s what a strong sporting administrator does. Greenberg didn’t need Twitter to tell him how ugly the tackle was. Sims’ broken jaw was compelling enough. Let’s give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that was the reason for his intervention. It was the right decision and not the popular one.
Let’s also hope the appointment of former referee Graham Annesley as the NRL's new head of football means Greenberg no longer has to get his hands dirty with footy matters.
In an interview with Fairfax Media at the start of this season, Greenberg spoke of his concern about dwindling participation numbers.
“It’s at the top of the dais,” he promised. “In the last three years we’ve had declining numbers in traditional numbers for males. That’s what we’ve got to arrest.”
Participation figures can be as rubbery as election polls but the NRL is expected to announce in the next fortnight that there has been an increase in both male and female junior numbers.
Repeat offender: Napa’s head-first tackle on Korbin Sims earlier in the season left the Broncos forward with a broken jaw.
Roosters coach Trent Robinson was also worried about the bigger picture after the recent loss to Canberra, curiously paying homage to the salary cap for an even competition in the wake of the “self-destructive” coaching circus.
Napa’s tackle hurts the game’s reputation far more than coaching speculation.
Robinson danced around questions after the Broncos match about whether his prop had a problem with his tackling technique.
“He’s a physical player in our game and he’s aggressive in the way that he goes about that play,” Robinson said. “The first thing is it’s not good to see Andrew in that way … but I also support ‘Naps’ and the way that he plays the game.
Replay
“People enjoy the physicality that he plays with and that’s where the discussion will lie over the next couple of days.”
Of course, we all enjoy the way Napa plays. In his first season, in 2013, he threw his 198cm, 113kg, flame-haired frame at Paul Gallen, hitting him with his right shoulder and putting the Sharks captain squarely on his arse.
In 2016, Napa played the match of his life against Souths at ANZ Stadium. His left shoulder found its mark time and time again, pounding player after player into the soggy turf.
He brutalised Sam Burgess — probably the toughest player in the game — several times. Nathan Brown. Jason Clark. Chris Grevsmuhl. Bang. Bang. Bang.
But being a “physical player” who plays with “aggression” means nothing in this instance. Name a forward who isn’t physical and aggressive. (Dragons fans, don’t answer that one today).
What’s also irrelevant is whether Napa was trying to make a tackle or not.
“His arms are out going to tackle him, he’s definitely going to tackle him, I don’t think there’s a dispute over that,” Robinson said. “It’ll come down to whether they deem it’s OK to tackle that way.”
Rugby league’s an inexact science; a collision sport in which players are becoming stronger and bigger and fitter and playing at a tempo we previously only witnessed in State of Origins. The obsession with wrestling often contorts players into dangerous positions.
Napa's was just a tackle that went horribly wrong. The onus is on the defender to make sure he gets it right. The result of his actions and decisions have consequences. That’s always been “part of the game”, too.
McCullough is fortunate he wasn't seriously injured. And Napa is fortunate he’s only missing three matches when he could've easily been suspended for many more.
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