Outspoken pundit Jon Wilkin has weighed in on one of the current debates in the sport of rugby league, how can the game be made safer whilst retaining its appeal? For Wilkin, the answer is simple. It can’t.
That’s what the former St Helens captain has argued on this week’s episode of The Bench, the podcast that he co-hosts with fellow Sky Sports employee Jenna Brooks. The concept of the podcast sees the pair and a guest place something from the world of rugby league ‘on the bench’.
For Jon Wilkin this week, that was safety.
Jon Wilkin hits out at the over-sanitisation of rugby league
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Rugby League has come a long way in policing the laws of the game to make the sport safer. Much of that progress has come across an extended period of time but with ongoing lawsuits against the sport, and research into other sports such as football about concussion, it’s meant safety has become a hot topic.
“Why is everything so safe all the time?,” was Wilkin’s opening gambit for his ‘on the bench’ topic in this week’s episode with former Super League winger Andrew Mullally.
He continued: “We’re obsessed with safety, specifically in rugby league. We’re consumed by safety in an environment that’s not safe.”
Rugby League is in its nature a high-impact and contact sport but that’s not to say that it can’t be made safer whilst still retaining its core principles with some changes in focus doing just that. One of the key things that match officials were informed to look out for ahead of the season was the ‘flop’. Rugby League is no less an attraction because players can’t pile their weight on top of a prone player after the tackle is completed, however, Jon Wilkin has maintained that ‘danger’ is a key selling point for the game.
“We’re obsessed with the game being safe. I’m not interested if it’s safe. I play it because it’s dangerous.”
Should Rugby League prioritise broken legs over brain health? Ex-Saints skipper’s bizarre rant
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Perhaps inspired by the rant of one of his former teammates who now works as a pundit down under, Jon Wilkin referenced James Graham’s recent debates on ‘cancelling the kick-off’ before setting off on a rant of his own.
The notion of cancelling the kick-off has started to gain traction down under and that debate heightened when Moses Suli was knocked out on the first tackle of the game on Anzac Day recently. James Graham passionately defended the existence of the kick-off, declaring multiple times to journalist Dean Ritchie that he was “wrong”, before explaining the incident in more detail.
Graham surmised: “It’s a safety versus spectacle debate – how safe do you want it to be?
“If you want the game to be safe, you’re watching the wrong game.”
Jon Wilkin echoed that when carrying on his rant on The Bench, adding: “I watched James Graham go on a rant which is what made me think this. What we’re trying to do is make a game that’s inherently dangerous, safe, and it will never work.
“I think we’re making things safer because people are getting head injuries. But how many broken legs are we seeing? Like, we almost prioritise head injuries over, like, having a limb.”
The comparison between brain health and bone health, given the fact science exists that can help bones recover, was a strange one, but Wilkin’s tangent went even more specific as he revealed the injury that he sustained from his playing career that plagues him most days.
“My hands are awful. That’s a disability. I get embarrassed sometimes. I can’t take change off a counter.
“I take injuries very seriously. Imagine my biggest fear in life is giving somebody a £10 note, knowing I’m going to get £8 to change. Because once he puts that fiver and those three pounds on the side, I can’t pronate my arms.”
Despite that, he did maintain: “We’re obsessed with the game being safe. I’m not interested if it’s safe. I play it because it’s dangerous.”
