Cam Smith & Melbourne's Wrestling/Grappling.

[Steve]

Well I take no satisfaction from the decision. It was a grapple and he should have been suspended but these tackles have been going on all season and I find it odd the NRL cracks down a couple of weeks before the Grand Final. They've made an example of him now and hopefully it's the first step to eradicating that type of tackle.

All of this doesn't change the fact we should have won the game on Saturday night and it should be us facing Cronulla tomorrow night. Anyway I still think Melbourne will get the chocolates tomorrow.

 

[mrslong]

I've got one word to say to you Bellyache: LOL

 

[Flutterby]

bianc

Smith had 2 goes at the grapple.

Yes they should have cracked down on them earlier, but better late than never.

Agree - just because the NRL judiciary has been derelict in their duty up til now by not cracking down on it, doesn't mean they should continue to ignore this blatant disregard for the rules. I think the defending premier's captain missing finals is a great time to finally step up the plate and say "enough is enough". I truly hope this is the first in a continuing series of suspensions (as many as it takes) until the practice is out of the game and that they don't just go back to letting it slide next season.

 

[bianc]

Then why wait until finals is what I am saying. 16 of these tackles were shown on Fox last night. Nobody got done for any of them and it was finals time to.
Manly and Cronulla among the worst offenders.
I feel sorry for Cam being the scapegoat for a useless NRL mob that let this type of play go this far.
How long have the coaches and players complained.

Ah! Not worth the bother. Too many Storm haters here to even see the point.
Had this been one of ours then I bet the complaining would really start and rightly so.

 

[Kaz]

I don't give a rats who does a grapple tackle, they should be banned. (the tackle & the player who does them)

 

[last|soldier]

Come on. They know it's against the rules (contray conduct etc) so if they do it it's their fault. If they want to push the envelope they should expect the consequences.

I also think if something so blatant as Smith's on Saturday showed up earlier in the year he would have suffered same fate.

End of story.

And as for us getting caught, I've never seen one of our players do something as blatant as Smith's or Quinn's (that were shown in the youtube video posted earlier in this thread).

 

[Flutterby]

I completely understand where you are coming from bianc, but what I am saying is that we should be applauding the NRL for FINALLY trying to do something about it - not just going well they've never punished it before they should continue not punishing it. I'll be pretty peeved if they just punish this one and don't continue to punish it, but I am hoping this is the start of the end for the grapple tackle. And it's not an anti-Melbourne thing; I'm not anti-Melbourne per se in fact I was one of their biggest supporters until they starting over-using the tactics that they do (not just the grapple but a lot of other things they have introduced to the game). I am not denying all clubs use some form of wrestling techniques, but the Storm take it over the top to the absolute extreme where it is really really dangerous.

And personally I would be just a critical of the Broncos if they were doing it to such extremes. One of the reasons I didn't want Bellamy as our coach - I had visions of him bringing the same tactics into our club and that is something I just can't support.

 

[last|soldier]

Exactly Flutterby.

Let's hope so.

 

[mick]

Well I take no satisfaction from the decision. It was a grapple and he should have been suspended but these tackles have been going on all season and I find it odd the NRL cracks down a couple of weeks before the Grand Final. They've made an example of him now and hopefully it's the first step to eradicating that type of tackle.

All of this doesn't change the fact we should have won the game on Saturday night and it should be us facing Cronulla tomorrow night. Anyway I still think Melbourne will get the chocolates tomorrow.

They should've come down harder earlier, agreed.

That being said, this one was still the worst I've seen for a long time, if not ever. Atrocious tackle.

IMO it should've been graded higher. A swinging arm that hits a bit too high has knocked players out of the game on 8+ week suspensions. Two or three goes at twisting, pulling and attacking the head/neck on a player for a sustained 5 seconds is akin to eye gouging IMO.

 

[Emma]

Completely agree mick! There have been other grapple tackles throughout the year that have indeed gone unpunished, but nothing anywhere near as bad as the one Smith did on Saturday. To say that other teams have gotten away with the same thing is ridiculous because I've never seen anyone put a hand either side of someone's head and yank them back like that.

 

[bianc]

They are inconsistent and it probably won't happen again in a final or GF if there is a grapple. Especially being Cronulla & Manly who have some pretty big offenders of this tackle.

 

[Emma]

Absolutely they are inconsistent, but irrespective of the time of year, there is simply no way in hell they could have done anything other than charge Smith. As mick said, that was one of the worst I've ever seen as well and really, he should be sitting down for a lot longer than 2 weeks for that sort of thing. There is a big difference between the original grapple tackle and what Smith did on Saturday night. Sure, they should all be suspended, but the 'similar' tackles that Bellamy has detailed are nothing like what happened to Sam.

 

[Coxy]

And that's the problem. The techniques aren't about slowing down the play the ball specifically, they're about causing the tackled player pain and discomfort to make them easier to get to ground and thus slow down the play the ball.

That to me is disgusting.

Sure, it's fine to cause pain with a legitimate tackle, but to effectively strangle a bloke or pull on his arm or leg until it feels like it's dislocating, that's unacceptable.

 

[bianc]

Not condoning in any way how bad the tackle was or what it may have done to Sammy. It is unacceptable and has been all year.
I just find it rediculous(I know they had no option but to put him out) they wait until now to act.
I don't know how you can possibly grade that this was worse than any of the others though. It was a shocker but the others I have seen could easily have maimed any player as well.

Lets wait and see what goes down in the next two weeks and what players and what actions are taken.
I do hope for Smiths sake & the Storm they are consistent if they are fair dinkum.

 

[Coxy]

No, what's ridiculous is they didn't find Michael Crocker guilty of a careless high tackle on Kemp. Flush hit on the chin! I've seen LESSER tackles charged with grade 2s!

Crocker should've copped 4 weeks for that hit given his record.

 

[bianc]

Just saw that on Fox. Inconsistency once again. OR were they afraid to take out too many Storm players cos they may look even more like the bad guys.
Spitting towards an official cops much more than Crocker got which was nothing. The whole thing is a joke.

 

[Emma]

Not condoning in any way how bad the tackle was or what it may have done to Sammy. It is unacceptable and has been all year.
I just find it rediculous(I know they had no option but to put him out) they wait until now to act.
I don't know how you can possibly grade that this was worse than any of the others though. It was a shocker but the others I have seen could easily have maimed any player as well.

Lets wait and see what goes down in the next two weeks and what players and what actions are taken.
I do hope for Smiths sake & the Storm they are consistent if they are fair dinkum.

I'm not the only one who thinks that it was far worse than the original style of grapple tackle. Not saying the others didn't have the potential to hurt someone, but I think the potential with this one was far greater. Compare it say to the one that Smith got charged for earlier in the year on Tate - that was nothing compared to this. Others throughout the year have indeed had their arms around players necks, but I'm yet to see another one where someone is so blatantly and forcefully using both hands to yank someone backwards by the head.

 

[gUt]

Others throughout the year have indeed had their arms around players necks, but I'm yet to see another one where someone is so blatantly and forcefully using both hands to yank someone backwards by the head.

That's what makes me shake my head. In the video that was posted earlier in the thread, the grapples and choke holds could sometimes be argued as being accidental or incidental in a contact sport. The Smith one though just looks so deliberate and nasty. He has 2 or 3 goes and each time he does it, it looks worse.

Then Smith has the gall to stand there straight faced and say, 'as soon as I realised I had accidentally made contact with Thaiday's face, I instantly let him go.' WTF? Look at the damn tape! It doesn't matter what speed or angle you look at it from, it's a deliberate, calculated attack to the neck/head.

It's a bit like that stupid Shaggy song about getting caught screwing the next door neighbor on the bathroom floor - "it wasn't me".