There has been a lot of talk this week about players shrugging and ducking in a tackle to get a free kick for head high contact. Alistair Clarkson called for a change to the rules, Jeff Gieschen said it was not in the spirit of the game.
Seems like a big over reaction to me. The game and the tactics are developing faster than ever before, and this is just another example. "Back in the Day" players used to be taught to tackle from the hips and keep the arms low. But that often meant the player being tackled would lift his arms to keep them free from the tackle so he could get away a handball. So to counteract that, players now try and tackle higher and pin the arms. (In fact it is only last year that there was a fair bit of talk about this being dangerous because players could not protect themselves if they were thrown to the ground.)
So ball players have just developed a new evasive skill to deal with the new style of tackling where instead of getting their arms out of the top, they try and slip the tackle by going underneath. One of the effects of that is they sometimes draw head high contact. But it is just part of the development of the game. Next step I see is that tacklers will need to learn a new technique to deal with this. Perhaps this is something that Alistair could concentrating his energies on.
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