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Let's get something straight: New Zealand pulled off and deserved
its incredible victory over the Kangaroos in Saturday night's
Tri-Nations rugby league opener in Sydney. Stirring stuff from
the Kiwis, no question. But can someone please explain how Nigel
Vagana and Frank Pritchard escaped punishment for the worst spear
tackle seen in recent memory? Someone? Anyone? It makes a mockery
of an international game that needs all the help it can get.
Australian replacement Trent Waterhouse is lucky he isn't in a
wheelchair eating out of a tube right now. That's not an exaggeration.
Vagana and Pritchard picked up the Penrith backrower in the second
half of the match, got him into a perfect perpendicular position
and then rammed his head from a reasonable height and speed into
the Telstra Stadium turf. Waterhouse is okay - he's got a stiff
neck. Vagana and Pritchard are okay too, somehow. Both were reported,
only Vagana had to front the judiciary afterwards (for some reason
that is yet to be explained), Vagana argued that Pritchard had
been more at fault, Vagana was cleared. End of story.
No, no, no, no, noooooooooooooo. Not end of story. Okay,
this isn't the NRL and there is a different set of rules and processes
for these hearings. But how two players can escape censure for
endangering a player's life (again, that's not an exaggeration)
is mystifying. Ludicrous. Insanity. NRL video reviewer Greg McCallum,
who was on the match review committee that brought Vagana to task
on Saturday night, said: "The system might not be perfect
but improvements are being made. The other thing that needs to
be taken into account is that when something happens in a Test
match and it involves a player missing a Test match then the penalty
may be seen to be more severe than in a club match."
What are those improvements? When are they being put into place?
And when does it matter if it's an international game, an NRL
match, a third-grade match in Auckland or an under 10s game at
Pennant Hills? A spear tackle is a spear tackle. And one as blatant
as the one Vagana and Pritchard executed should have brought massive
penalties. To clear that tackle makes the so-called pinnacle of
the code look amateurish and absurd.
Apart from that incident, the Kiwis did their best to make international
rugby league relevant. Their victory has stirred interest when
most of us are footballed out. Australia looked like a bunch of
elite players who had been on the drink for five weeks: brilliant
at times, shabby for most of the match. The Kiwis played with
passion and soul. Coach Brian McClennan talked about a "brotherhood"
after the game. And his side played accordingly. Dare we suggest
it, but we could be in for a tight Tri-Nations, something that
will give the series and the international game some serious cred.
Rulings such as the one that cleared Vagana and Pritchard, however,
put it back light-years.
What d'ya reckon?
Click your way to our Comebacks
page and tell us.
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