Terry O’Connor harshly rejects hip drop tackle excuse

In a week dominated by the hip drop tackle, Terry O’Connor has had his say.

O’Connor was covering the game when Mike Cooper was injured by Knowles’ tackle and admitted he missed it in the game:

“Well I am not sure where it got it’s name. Normally when players get they wrong, like putting Mike Cooper out for the year, that’s shocking and we all wish him well, but this is not an intentional tackle by some people.

“It looks bad but I was working this game and I didn’t really pick it up. All we saw was the reaction of Mike Cooper. He has broken free, he is breaking through tackles and striding free and then all of a sudden you have a player on the wrong side of the ruck that just tries to defend it and gets it wrong.”

However, he has slammed the tackle saying players can’t protect themselves from them:

“They are terrible, everyone knows I don’t like three man tackles when someone comes in and cannonballs when you can’t protect themselves.

“I don’t know any coach who is teaching the hip drop tackle, it looks horrendous and there is no place for it in the game.

“Players have to be better front on.”

He went on to reject the narrative that this tackle has come from the new rules speeding up the game:

“That was always the case back when I started in 1991, it has always been about quick play the balls and landing on your front.

“There is desperation from defenders to slow the game down.

“It has been around and it is always to try and benefit the defender and players will get things wrong and you can’t get it wrong if you are going to injure someone like that with Mike Cooper.

“It needs stamping out of the game.”