Fairfax’s Andrew Webster is the best league writer in the game, and a great friend of this magazine, but he couldn’t be any more wrong in his interpretation of the Alex McKinnon tackle in last week’s game between the Melbourne Storm and Newcastle Knights.

“Watch the replay again and you will see McLean's other arm is wrapped around McKinnon's legs as well, as he makes a standard tackle – not a ‘spear tackle’, as some have been irresponsibly labelling it,” Andrew writes today.

This video clearly shows that McKinnon was lifted from between the legs. Clearly beyond the horizontal.

That’s against the rules.

Andrew also writes: “Those of you who have watched this incident over and over trying to make sense of it all must surely see that McKinnon's sudden ducking of his head has contributed, if not caused, his injury.”

We don’t follow that, either. Where on earth was the bloke supposed to put his head when it is being aimed at the ground, if not curl it tightly in to prevent it being bent backwards?

This incident and its tragic outcome was the precise reason lifting beyond horizontal in tackles has been outlawed.