Kawazaki wrote: ↑Tue Apr 19, 2022 1:42 pm
Rhubarb & Custard wrote: ↑Tue Apr 19, 2022 1:25 pm
...he can either think bollocks to this and jump into contact, or hold back.
Those aren't the only two options.
Or he can plant his face into a shoulder and/or elbow, or he can try to morph into space his teammate is already using. What else? Just go really low trying to get beneath the elbow, or try to grab a shoulder and haul down whilst being driven backwards? As Biggar is coming across with the angle the carrier is leaning towards him I don't think that will look like an easy picture to envisage making a clean/controlled and effective tackle, I'd consider that would encourage the panic that sees the bad tackle attempt made rather than he's just going to jump into the tackle whatever.
I could of course be wrong in this, and actually every time Biggar has jumped into a tackle his coaches have said that's a problem Dan, we'll be doing 20 minutes extras every day for the next 1-2 weeks across a number of scenarios to seek an improvement in this area of your game, both for the safety of others and to reduce the risk of penalties and cards to us. However I just think it more likely they'll consider something along the lines of defence is a mindset, there are hundreds of collisions every game, and we're happy to see our players want to seek contact even if every now and then that costs us because the alternative of being more cautious is a much bigger risk in our estimation. Basically I doubt any of his jumping into tackles moments have led to much if any extra detail on his tackling, and if they're not spending actual serious time addressing it they cannot think it serious. They might say they'd attend a course just to get a sanction reduced, some may place more value on that than I would
How one ups the sanction such coaches would try to cut out 100% of high tackles I don't know. It already comes with a risk of a red card and a long ban, we could add a penalty try to that no matter where the offence takes place and even before a lot of people would dislike such influence on the game the coaches might think we're still going to get away with a lot of collisions where players don't make the ideal tackle, and we'd still rather out players want to seek contact. I don't know how many tackles Saints go between red cards, nor how many of them would be less than ideal such as Biggar tried that managed to stay legal or at least escape sanction, but they likely do and they actively accept the tradeoff