I will always remember being shown a photo of a man in combat who was shot instantly dead whilst running. Because of the sudden "switch off", he basically broke his legs falling, and this is a common sympton of people knocked out or killed suddenly and with bad timing neck injuries are common too.



I disagree, the injury itself should not affect the punishment. The punishment should be calculated on the seriousness of the tackle, not the end result. Westwood may have caused slight injury on this occasion, but he could have gone in exactly the same but screwed up the landing and killed Carlaw, or he could have laid him out safely and with absolutely no injury.

With such a random factor, it shouldn't be taken into account. Take Wilkin's tackle on O'Loughlin a few years ago, ended his season and screwed his knee up, but, despite the fact Wilkin is one of the dirtiest players in Rugby League, I knew it was an accident, and wouldn't have pushed for Wilkin to get any kind of ban as a result. If, however, it had been a high tackle, O'Loughlin would have been fine, and Wilkin would have deserved a ban.

The only exception I would make is where it's clear that injury was INTENDED, i.e. Chickenwing tackles.