AUCKLAND — Former All Blacks Justin Marshall, Jeff Wilson and Mils Muliaina have warned World Rugby are in dangerous territory after the global governing body announced it will outlaw the hip-drop tackle from 1 November, following the incident which left All Blacks wing Leroy Carter with a high ankle sprain.
The law amendment, which follows rugby league's NRL in banning the technique where a tackler uses bodyweight to pull an opponent to ground and drop onto their legs, was announced last week under World Rugby chair Brett Robinson. Many viewed Wallabies loose forward Rob Valetini's tackle on Carter — as he attempted to bring the wing to ground before he touched down for his side's fifth try — as the type of challenge World Rugby are trying to stamp out. Carter was left in agony after scoring and has since been revealed to have suffered a high ankle sprain.
Marshall, speaking on The Breakdown, insisted Valetini's effort should not be deemed illegal when the law comes into effect. "The terminology in rugby league is basically riding the defender to the ground because they're always trying to put the defender on the ground, usually with duel tacklers," he said. "It's usually when the second one arrives, he just basically puts all his bodyweight on a player that's already ahead of him and then that creates knee, ankle, quad problems. It doesn't often happen in rugby because obviously with our game we don't have the duel hit and when the duel hit is coming at you, it is front on, it's not usually a guy that is coming in from behind. The hip drop, there is no such thing in rugby, it's coming under the terminology which is dangerous tackle. That to me is not a dangerous tackle."
The former scrum-half said Valetini was simply trying to stop a try, comparing it to his own attempt to tackle Toutai Kefu in Bledisloe Cup footage. "All I was trying to do was stop him from getting the ball to ground and my weight was on his backside. Valetini was only trying to do the same," Marshall said. "Carter's ahead of him, he's trying to pull him backwards. Look at Valetini, he's leaning back towards the All Blacks tryline, thinking 'I've got to try and stop him from grounding the ball'. He hasn't intentionally put weight and force through the lower body of Leroy Carter to injure him, it is purely accidental, so we've got to be careful here. I think dangerous tackle can come in there but that is not a dangerous tackle, it's just a player trying to stop a guy from scoring."
Wilson reminded Marshall the law is scheduled for 1 November, prompting Marshall to reply, "I hope they don't go down that route," to which Wilson responded, "Oh, they're going to." Muliaina added: "That's what worries me. You've now got a Foul Play Review Officer that's going to be constantly looking at things like that. There's grey in that." Wilson agreed, saying: "It needs to be very clear and obvious for me for it to remain in the game in terms of yellows and red cards, that's dangerous territory. I don't like it."