- Hip drop” and “knee drop” tackles confirmed as being illegal
- Both can cause extensive player welfare issues
- Knee drop via a Law Application Guideline on October 5th
- Hip drop via a law change from November 1st
The World Rugby Executive Board has approved a law amendment and a law application guideline confirming that two relatively rare, but dangerous tackle techniques, will now be subject to sanction.
The “hip drop” tackle, where a tackler uses their bodyweight to pull a player to ground and drops onto the legs of a ball carrier from behind, will be explicitly added to foul play and will be sanctioned with at least a penalty kick.
The “knee drop” tackle, where a player drops to one or both knees before making a tackle, will be highlighted to players, coaches and match officials as an action already covered in law and can also be sanctioned with a penalty.
Investigating the “hip drop” tackle was an outcome of February’s Shape of the Game meeting. World Rugby established an expert tackle height working group which also took on responsibility for investigating “hip drop” and later “knee drop” tackles and commissioned research with Leeds Beckett University. The group, which also reviewed the trials of a lower tackle height in the U20 World Championships, commissioned research and game analysis from a rugby around the world in both sevens and fifteens. The working group recommended to Executive Board that the law around these dangerous tackles be clarified. This follows the act being banned across American Football and Rugby league in recent season – albeit both sports with different approaches to player contact, predominantly chest to chest, rather than dynamics side and tackles from behind.
New Hip drop tackle definition
New Definition:
Hip-drop tackle: When a ball carrier…
– is grasped and tackled from the side or behind,and;
– the tackler swings round or through the ball carrier, and/or;
– drops their hips/body weight down on to the legs or lower limbs of the ball carrier as…
they are brought to ground.
It will also be added the end of Law 9.13 top make sure they are explcitly included in the possible actions there. There are some video examples (squeamish folk may wish not to…) via the World Rugby Passport site – click here for the wording which is effective 1 November.
For “knee drop” tackles, a player is already prohibited from making a tackle while on the ground. Therefore, World Rugby has issued a Law Application Guideline effective immediately to reinforce the application of these provisions across the game.
Evidence based
On the new law amendments World Rugby Chair Brett Robinson said, “We’re grateful to unions for raising the issue of these types of tackle with us. My thanks go to the working group and wider World Rugby team for the speed and breadth of their research and analysis. These changes show the commitment across the globe to player welfare in rugby in action.
“Once we looked at the evidence, it was clear the hip drop tackles whilst rare, could cause significant leg injuries. It was also clear that knee drop tackles were on the rise.
“Protecting player welfare is at the heart of everything that World Rugby does and once we’d reviewed the analysis we’ve acted quickly to ensure that dangerous tackles of this nature are removed from the game, starting this weekend.”
The right thing to do
Former Ireland international, and International Rugby Players Association representative on the World Rugby Executive Board, Rob Kearney said, “While a change of this nature can be challenging to manage in the short term as players, coaches and match officials adjust, this decision has been taken to protect players from potential serious injury, and that’s the right thing to do.”
Who made these decisions?
The working group members are below, who made recommendations to the World Rugby Executive board to make the final decision.
World Rugby’s Working Group members
- Rachel Burford – International Rugby Players Association
- Maggie Cogger-Orr – International Rugby Match Officials
- Felix Jones – Coach, South Africa Men
- Tappe Henning – Match Officials, United Rugby Championship
- Richie Gray – Coach, Toulon
- Emilie Bydwell – Coach, USA Women Rugby 7s
- Alana Thomas – Former High Performance Lead, Fiji / World Rugby Coach Intervention Sanction Mitigation Reviewer
- Philippe Marguin – Community Match Officials, France
- Pat Williams – Head of Rehabilitation and Resilience, Rugby Australia
- Prof Ross Tucker – Research Science Consultant
World Rugby members (non voting)
- Mark Robinson – Chief of Rugby
- Mark Harrington – Chief of Player Welfare & Rugby Services
- Phil Davies – Director of Rugby
- Dr Eanna Falvey – Chief Medical Officer
- Dr Lindsay Starling – Science & Medical Manager
- Kevin Bouwer – Head of Game Systems & Analysis
- Johnny Lacey – Match Official Talent ID Manager (u20s JWC Referee Manager)
- Keith Lewis – Laws Coordinator
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