Well as regards players, "high tackles" are punished in Rugby Union (dont know about League)
with either a Yellow Card (10 minutes in the Sin Bin) or Red Card (Immediate sending off and
banning of further games)
I know the new competition Pro14 Rainbow Cup is trialling different rules for yellow and red
cards but thats a seperate matter and I would have to look them up again.
As regards player welfare, a player who suffers an injury is removed for HIA assessment
and is deemed to be able to carry on playing or not. If not the player is monitored in the
"Return to play protocol" and is further assessed as to whether he can play sooner or later.
So player welfare is probably top of the list of concerns for all in Rugby and high tackles
are really punished, (when detected properly)
@TheNineClub from your earlier post you say you are in the Balkans, Romania
have a strong Rugby tradition and I think they are in the top 20 world rankings (Rugby Union)
In relation to Australia and New Zealand there is the long running comparison
between Northern and Southern Hemisphere playing styles, im not sure how
different they are these days but for sure New Zealand whenever playing draw
a lot of interest, it is their #1 sport after all.
I am in Ireland and we have a strong Rugby (union) tradition here eventhough its the 3rd or
4th most popular sport here.
Some fun facts, we have the oldest club in the world which is still in existence
and one of the oldest Rugby grounds in the world was Landsdown Road, now The Aviva Stadium.
Thank you for the extensive answer, and glad to see some changes have been made towards player protection.
I honestly did not know that about Romania, I will definitely check it out. However, Rugby is still not at the level it should be in this region, and not even from the player quality, but more from the support from the local government, cities, and even the small amount of fans. Sad to see.
I am from Croatia to be exact, so the situation is like that over here. In a similar manner (even tho not on that scale), we too here have the divide where only the north and the south play Rugby. Not much animosity, but yeah... XD
I knew England had a strong rugby following and community but did not know that about Ireland. Good to hear
It actually makes sense, but I am surprised it's not the second popular. So what's before? Soccer I would guess. Do YOu guys play cricket?
I have bets on with my usual top performers, Rabbitohs, Panthers and Eels.
There is great odds on the Rabbitohs because of their only loss in 8 games against Storm as you say, I'm they are not going to relinquish 3rd place on the table, way too much at stake with this game for them, for all 5 at the top end if the table really.
I am so glad I never saw this horror movie / car crash unfolding:
I'm beginning to think a couple of my other pics later in the week are also going to come unraveled in much the same way. This year has been such a skewered season with half the teams totally blitzing the other half and yet two of the top teams come together and it's a
Cluster Fk!WTF, did only half the Rabbitohs team turn up for the match? Zero, nothing,
no score of any kind registered, did they even get out of their own half?
Luckily I had the sense in one way to only put a small bet on the Rabbitohs
Well I only have The Panthers and Eels backed so I hope they are safe bets.
Just watched the highlights, some finishing by Addo-Carr to bag 6 tries.
and watched the press conference with the Rabbitohs coach, he kinda
mentioned that a defeat was coming based on their last few matches
even though they won them.
So a couple of days when I was going through the ranking, Rabbitohs were in the first or second place? something like that, so this is a surprise. I get it they might lose, but looking just from the highlights, they were played like a fiddle. I could understand the coach's sentiment, but this is ridiculous even from my point of view, but yeah they do mention injuries...
Anyway, since you mentioned the highlights, here they are for anyone else who want's to see
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9SB907YMkE