I was recently trolling FB to gauge the reaction of the slater incident and I am appalled at the storm fans "win at all cost" mentality. Most of the lame excuses to let him play were laughable but I spat it when they started dissing the Akerman family about the shoulder charge. A lot of comments began "We feel sorry for the family BUT......." FMD there is no "but" the shoulder charge has killed and if they don't stamp it out, it's only a matter of time before another unfortunate mis- hit claims another person. I was always an advocate of the shoulder charge and thought it was just good strong defence but times have changed and the players are no longer just the talented footballers they once were. As professionals they are built differently than in the past and a lot of them are 100kg plus masses of solid muscle and could inflict untold damage if a tackle goes wrong.
The NRL have two choices, they can either overturn the charge, let slater play to get their fairy finish for a favourite son, or they can get fair dinkum and uphold the charge, suspend him and give a clear warning to all other players that this style of play is dangerous and will not be tolerated no matters who the player is.

Slater should and will get off. That was a great cover tackle. Phil Gould is right in what he says.

MNewton, if you want to see great cover tackles view Turvey Mortimer in action in the 80's.... now that is REAL cover tackles. As far as the slater tackle goes, it doesn't matter how good the hit was or how soft you think it was, if the NRL are genuine about eliminating shoulder charges, then they have to act on ALL shoulder charges, front on, side on whether the tackled player gets hurt or not. If they exonerate slater tonight, I reckon the GF will be on for young and old.

Andrew Webster hits the nail on the head when he says it was a shoulder collision rather than a shoulder charge.

In my opinion,  the difference is that wingers are resigned to the fact that they will end up out of the field. They throw themselves in the air knowing this. Whether a shoulder or arm hits them out is insignificant. All they care about is there arm planting the ball down inside the try line.

I've seen many of these incidents over the last decade or so and I can tell you the main concern for injury is actually not the impact by the tackler but rather the impact into the ground (possibly with 1 or 2 or 3 players on top) or shoulder/socket dislocation from an extended tryscoring arm.

Getting bumped off is actually the least of the concerns unless whiplash occurs

The best cover tackle was by Andrew Ettinghouselgtbqihousensennegger. From the other side of the field tackling the winger around the legs. Twice in one game.
I think it was an origin game?

I feel shoulder charging a winger a bit wussy. Slater should have done a George Gregan. 

ODF, the issue here is that the NRL tried to protect themselves from future litigation etc by taking some sort of action on high shots and injuries.

So they banned the shoulder charge as a black and white solution. 

What they didnt see coming is this sort of incident. A winger about to score and a fullback with limited opportunity to stop him. 

Many people will agree the chance of injury in this instance is far lower than front on shoulder charge. A Mortimer or Satler cover tackle is next to useless in this instance. It's either bump him off or slide under his scoring arm. 

The NRL is within their rights to modify the rule.

You might remember that they already have a rule to not tackle a defending player in the air while it's all systems go to do it on an attacker.

Same thing here. The defenders must have some sort of chance regardless of potential injury.

I know it introduces a grey area but it will come down to whether they want a black and white rule or horses for courses rule. 

Just be careful what you all wish for. Because if they make a soft decision on this matter then they will have to renegotiate their stance on head highs, crusher, chickenwing and spear tackles. If no one gets hurt... no problems.

Accidental, intentional or not, Slater shouldered a player. Apparently there's a rule about that & rightly so. It's too dangerous for the more educated modern era, even if it's a low percentage serious injury rate.
If it was a similar but different situation, say Slater jumping in the air to catch a ball & some player happened to make contact with their little finger & if the contact was enough to change the trajectory of Slaters fall, it's deemed dangerous contact. It's the rule.
Obviously there's likely going to be a lack of consistency & bias depending on who did the shoulder charge or whose little finger it was.
If it was Slaters little finger, it'd probably be let go, case dismissed, but a no-name player (the 2 C'bury wingers that played in the nil all draw would be perfect examples, only 10 first grade games between them in their whole careers, nothing to write about or glorify in the media there) then chances are it'd be an instant suspension.

BN, my entire take on this issue is not about the intent of the tackle or the result of the collision. My main concern is, does the NRL want to eliminate the style of tackle or not. If they are concerned that shoulder charges are potentially dangerous, then any contact made by a defender or attacker that uses the shoulder is illegal... end of message.

I understood your point. It's a chance for them to show some consistency & clamp down on it, particularly under the spotlight, big name, big event, where it'll be remembered for years to come, which would really get the message across to the masses. We'll have to wait until later to see what they do, but one thing's for sure, Slater has a lot of defenders of what he did, many influential, so I suspect they'll want to just let it go.

Whatever the decision, I want the Storm to win.
I want the roosters to start stacking up the "Lost Grand Finals" column. 

Remember when Josh Reynolds got off with a trip as it was ruled he had touched the player before? I reckon Slater will get off for same reason

A Mortimer like cover tackle is point less towometres out. Plus Slater was coming from a more head on angle so he couldn’t position himself for a traditional tackle cause he would of left himself exposed to being stepped on the inside. He needed to keep his body upright as long as position to be able to make a tackle on his right or left shoulder.

I don't know what the NRL expects a defender to do in that situation. Maybe just grab on, wrap the ball up, forget about shoulder charges & smashing the attacker into touch, then if they get dragged over the try line by the attacker it's all about holding the ball up if possible. At least it isn't a suspension. Anyway, it's up to the defending team not to be in such a desperate situation in the first place. If they can't make a clean tackle in time, it's not a fair excuse for a bad/suspension tackle.

The difference is that those you mention are in fact high percentage injury causing moves whereas the shoulder charge isn't. 
Statistically, it is very low. It's only bad when it goes wrong and generally only when contact is made with the head.

Otherwise, it's no different to a chest on chest contact. 

Once again, a shoulder charge (like Billy's) is a high momentum but soft body impact. 

A top of shoulder impact to the chest of someone actually causes more injury.

Canterbury have signed forward James Roumanos.

Parra have sacked Trex today.

The thing is with all them tackles you talk of, none of them carry an automatic 200 pt judiciary appearance.

If every player was placed on report for a head high tackle and got two weeks, how many players would we have left playing the game by halfway through the season? Most, I'd say the vast majority of high contact/head highs are dealt with on field by a penalty and that's as far as it goes - because most of them are accidental and the contact incidental with no injury. Same goes for spear tackles. Chickenwings and crushers always attract a bit more attention but there's still plenty dealt with by penalty only and none of the above carry an automatic 200pt judiciary appearance.

And that's the rod the NRL have made for their own back by over reacting.

I think I've been the most vocal of anyone on here and previous incarnations of The BDP that the shoulder charge MUST be banned but it should be dealt with like any other act of foul play, judge the incident on the incident not on some preconceived automatic penalty.

I'm still not convinced Slater's tackle was a shoulder charge at all, I still think it's a collision gone wrong IMO. But even if it is technically a shoulder charge it's not the sort of tackle the rule was rightly introduced to deal with and prevent. It was meant to deal with the ones with intent, intent to shoulder charge.

Now if you want to call Slaters tackle a shoulder charge I got no problem with it but it should be dealt with in the context of itself, and in the context of itself - penalty sufficient, just like most head high's and lifting tackles.

I predict two things will come out of tonight. One with certainty, one not quite so.

The one with certainty is that The NRL will realise the rod they've made and quietly change the rule for next season so all future shoulder charges will not attract an automatic grading and judiciary appearance but will be dealt with on their own merits, like all the other foul plays acts. Sometimes, penalty sufficient, sometimes judiciary and two weeks, sometimes judiciary and 12 months.

The second thing I predict with not so much certainty is that knowing this is not the sort of tackle they wanted to be giving an automatic two weeks to anyone for they'll be desperate for anything that can get Slater off and his Counsel won't have to work to hard to convince them of that.

He was signed about 9 months ago, maybe even more.

Google tells me May, so maybe not 9 months, but still not just today either.

And there are plentiful of them since 2000....
00 loss to Broncos
02 won against warriors
03 loss to Panthers
04 loss to Bulldogs
10 loss to saints 
13 won against manly
18??

I saw it on the official twitter today. I haven't heard of him before now, didn't know they were late with the announcement.

As for Trex, it'll be tough getting a contract now, with 12 weeks suspension to start it.

This just went up a few minutes ago on the official site :

The Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs have issued the following statement in response to the NRL Breach Notice findings as issued today:
Bulldogs Chief Executive Andrew Hill accepted the NRL's response to the recent Breach Notice pertaining to the club : "Having worked closely with the NRL in regards to our response to the recent Breach Notice that was handed down we feel that as a club we have acted swiftly and decisively to both review the events of the day and to put in place improved procedures to make sure that this does not happen again.Bulldogs Chair Lynne Anderson also stated that she felt that the club had learnt from the experience:"We acknowledge that some of the behaviours on the day were a poor look for the club and the game and we have reviewed everything that took place to make sure that we learn from it. What we also need to remember here, however, is that good people will sometimes make mistakes and that should not take away from the fact that these same people have done a great deal in the community on behalf of the club and will continue to do so. They are part of our family at the club and we will always support them through any difficult times."Head Coach Dean Pay also said that the club would learn from the experience:"There is no doubt that everyone at our club has learnt a great deal from the events of recent times. When something like this happens you have to take stock and put in place structures to make sure that it doesn't happen again. There is no doubt that the images from the day were a bad look for everyone involved and it means that we have to take responsibility for it and learn from it. We also need to remember that this is not representative of us as a club and what we stand for."    

Absolutely Beautiful. Beautiful statistics.

Zef what you say is correct and the NRL have brought this dilemma on their own backs due to knee jerk reactions that arose from tackles that have gone wrong but how can they exonerate slater on this one and then, sometime in the future crucify another player for the exact same tackle or what happens if a player makes a similar but even softer tackle that ends another players career because he landed wrong. There are too many variables to allow exceptions. I guess the NRL will have to be very careful how they deal with it because they could very well open a can of worms.

dman ..... hope you baked a birthday cake for your hero o'l blue eyes today.

Half our fine just got announced as suspended. I wouldn't be surprised if our comments were political - "we'll halve your fine if you don't cause a fuss and point out the Rabbitohs incident"

I am not a Slater fan, but I hope he gets off.
It is odvious to me that he was only trying to prevent a try and options were limited.
I am OK with penalizing a shoulder charge in general play as the intent is to put on a big shot and there is generally time to wrap the arm around.
I would call the Slater tackle a Bump rather than a shoulder charge, the primary intention is to prevent a try and contact needs to be safe. Still a penalty perhaps even a low grade charge.
People with an instinct for the game know that preventing a try is different to general play, there is more on the line hence more lattiude. 
I am not worried thugs will launch a spate of shoulder charges in try scoring situations as more often than not they will miss and the player will bounce off anyway and score. If is only effective if executed with control.
I would not be defending Slater if I had any doubts. He can be a thug on occasion but not this time.
Do we honestly care who wins? Anyone but the Roosters and preferably not the Storm is my preference.
In fact the day being abandoned after the Dogs win the lead up game is ideal 😁

We just need to cop it, learn our lessons and move on.
It is not worth having a public argument with NRL.
Behind the scenes many understand what went down and I am sure some have sympathy because they understand the nature of the telecrap ambush.
But there is a need to prevent this kind of thing happening in future, it is not what our sponsors want plastered all over the media. And we know that the telecrap will be desperate for another opportunity.
Myself I would ensure that we lead them on a wild goose chase next year, somewhere remote and rural.

hd, whatever happens I hope no one ever gets a serious injury through any of the tackles the NRL deems improper. As far as game day goes I will watch the ISP game and then shut the rugby league down. I cannot sit and watch the chooks win or if the storm win the billy slater pull-his-dickathon. I don't care how good slater is, his karate kid antics did it for me.

But they allow variables in every other act of foul play. Someone could get seriously injured or killed from a head high, a lifting tackle, crushers whatever. But they judge each and every one of them on it's merits. Every weekend there'd be half a dozen or more head high or high contact tackles and just about every one of them is dealt with by a penalty. And we haven't seen players think they've got a green light to go out swinging coat-hangers have we?