2014 State of Origin

The judiciary took into account the fact brent tate wears a pillow on his neck.

 

I really like the inevitable selection of Hopoate. It's another potential source of points which we really lack at the moment given our halves and second rowers.

Jennings & Morris are essentially just brilliant finishers, Jennings has the ability to create something out of nothing more than Morris but he's still pretty reliant on his halves or edge players creating space for him to exploit. Morris more of a hole runner/support player.

Hopoate's ability to put his winger away this year has been brilliant and we caught QLD short on a few occasions down that left edge of theirs. I actually thought Hayne had blown a golden chance in the play leading up to his second try, we had a 4 on 3 but he chose to run it instead.

 

It's a good tackle, what did you want to see him cop?

 

It's a good tackle gone wrong.

He didn't put his arm between the legs and he doesn't drive in the tackle, it just looked sensational and was unfortunate.

Dead set some people won't be happy until every tackle is a forward just carrying it up only to be 'caught' by the defensive line.

Yes, 'caught'. It's a defensive technique used by clubs now. The willingness to concede metres in select parts of the field on yardage sets because dominating sides with aggressive defence has become an impractical tactic to apply for the whole game, it's now saved for selective periods of the game. How sad is that?

Uncoincidentally I've really enjoyed watching the Dogs this year, a side who defends more aggressively than any other in the comp. Last Friday night was easily the most enjoyable Roosters game I've watched this year, sure the line between aggression and grubbery is a blurry one and some will say the game fell on the latter of that line but it was enjoyable. Because as Rugby League supporters the majority of us love the emotion & violence of the contest even if it's not politically correct to say so.

So no I don't believe anything more than a Grade 1 suspension is necessary, his technique was fine, there was no intent to drop him on his head and he doesn't drive him into the ground. Anything more would be to punish him for an accident and the only disincentive as I said earlier would be to forgo the traditional Rugby League tackle technique that Reynolds displays in the case in point in favour of just catching him and wrestling him to the ground.

/rantover