Prevention's best cure: Annesley bemused by crackdown critics

Head of football Graham Annesley has hit back at the latest criticisms of the NRL's high tackle crackdown by saying he cannot make sense of arguments against trying to stop preventable concussions.

Responding to criticism from some quarters that the NRL's recent crackdown was flawed as the majority of head knocks are suffered by tacklers rather than due to ball carriers receiving high contact, Annesley said that argument doesn't stack up.

Roughly three in 10 of year-to-date head injury assessments have been on ball carriers rather than tacklers.

Through 11 rounds of the Telstra Premiership there have been 57 HIAs that were subsequently passed, of which 71% were defenders and 29% attacking players.

A separate 52 HIAs which led to players being diagnosed with concussion had a similar rate, with 69% suffered by defenders and 31% by attacking players.

"In many cases the injury caused to the defending player is caused by the defender tackling quite high," he said.

"If it's 30% to the ball carrier, most of that 30% is for illegal high contact where the 70%, some of it is for high contact but a lot of it is other forms of contact, tackles gone wrong where there is no illegality.

"But if we're looking at 30% that is largely illegal play, isn't it better that we potentially drop the number of head injuries in the game by 30% than zero?"

To say we can't stop 70% of head injuries therefore we shouldn't try and stop any of them "is an argument I just can't make any sense of," he added.

"Surely what's happening at the moment with trying as much as possible to eliminate the 30% that are the result of high contact on ball carriers, it would be a fantastic outcome if we could eliminate that 30% entirely."

In general play incidents from the weekend, Annesley confirmed there were two missed forward pass calls at key times in the Roosters' loss to Brisbane.

A John Asiata short ball for a Keenan Palasia try midway through the second half was clearly forward out of the hands while another pass from Tyson Gamble also should have been pulled up.

While both passes were clearly forward and, in isolation, could have theoretically been overturned by the NRL Bunker, Annesley reiterated the point that if the Bunker started adjudicating on clearly forward passes then it would create an issue of when the video officials should intervene on more marginal calls.

Moves to use technology to assist with those decisions are still ongoing, with two technology companies in the process of developing systems that can determine if a pass has travelled forward out of the hands.

Annesley also noted two unusual but correct calls in successive Saturday night games where a winger had taken a kick dead due to a misunderstanding of the rules.

Both Matt Ikuvalu for the Roosters and Canberra's Bailey Simonsson had collected a kick that had bounced in-goal before it had landed beyond the dead-ball line. Despite some confusion from their respective teams, both calls were correct.