For the Boy Dave Crofty got injured not through making a low tackle but of having his head inthe wrong position. He mistimed the tackle too so that contributed greatly to his injury. Like in so many areas of life Timing is everything.
"He mistimed the tackle" is always a sign that a person has never played competitive rugby of a good standard.
The other way of putting it is that he got squared up by an intentional change in pace from his opponent and had his head smashed, believe me it happens a lot when tackling low and head on!
I suggest you stand square, get low and see how far you can get your head out of the way, then let 18 stone of muscle smash into you, it happens and much safer to tackle higher sometimes, only a nitwit would insist otherwise!
I have to be honest, I usually went for a gut shot, rising into the centre of gravity. I had enough from flying knees and feet when needs must you went for the lower legs.
My eldest was a rare hard tackler and stopped much bigger guys rising just below their COG and driving through (nowadays he gets to legally shoot them now and again instead, as an officer of HM forces).
Leicester Tigers 1995-
Nottingham 1995-2000
Swansea (Whites) 1988-95
A game played on grass in the open air by teams of XV.
I got caught out tackling low a few times myself with players switching on me into a low drive, more in training through not concentrating than anything else.
It is not so bad when you are on the front foot as the tackler but when you are on the back foot with no momentum going low is risky, unless you can tackle like Allen and then you afford to show some space and rely on your brilliant tackling skills.
As I recall Croft's incident was from a scrum and it was about the worst scenario possible, scrum going back, close to your own try line and near centre pitch width, oh and a massive No8, nightmare.
I also recall thinking the poor bloke actually had nowhere to put his head safely, left, right side or head on, all he could do was hope and he was off the scrum to defend too quickly for his own good, how unlucky can you get!
Even a judo style tackle might not have done it so close to the line, it was very brave!
I would have timed the tackle very differently. In fact I wouldn't have made it yet.
Disagree.
Croft sped across to try and protect his teammate (Youngs I think) who Easter was charging at, Easter switched late and caught Croft square with his head on the wrong side. In poor taste to call it a poorly timed tackle IMO, perhaps a little naive in only concentrating on protecting his teammate, but not poor, just one of those unfortunate incidents that can happen.
Makes me smile when folk think they could have done it differently, not that I mean you h's dad as you say you wouldn't have made it yet, but more folk calling it poor play indicating they don't fully understand that there is more to it than just a poorly timed tackle.
I know that most of the threads have been taken up with tackling (defence) which we will get sorted with Phil Blake but not much comment on attack except from iceman. Daryl Gibson is a Tigers man and has been instrumental in transforming the Waratahs attack to be the most potent in Super Rugby. Come on Tigers - we have the players no get the last piece of the jigsaw in place and get Gibson over!
