It revolves around force applied.



Third man into tackles has occurred as long as the game has been played however, the difference that Maguire brought over was the level of force. In the past, you'd regularly see a third tackler simply wrap his arms around a held player's ankles and he'd come down. Today, it's third tacklers literally running and throwing themselves at the legs of upright, held players. Since a player can be brought down in this scenario with minimal force, as RL history shows us perfectly, why do we need to pursue putting such force in ? Because it's a means of enforcing your dominance, hurting people and maybe even injuring people. 'Snapping the pole', 'make ing mayhem' etc etc are comments attributed to one club, who initially sought to put such force into these tackles for no other reason of being animals. Since, many others are doing it. The writing was on the wall years ago when Sam Tomkins put in one of the most awful collisions I've ever seen on a held and standing Keiron Cunningham under the posts at KR. That shot directly to the side of the knee could have easily seen one of the game's legends have his career finished in an instant. The Wigan club and players didn't give a damn. Do it anyway. That's because they're a scumbag organisation from top to bottom.



The law should be amended to emphasise force. Any level of force from a third man hitting the legs is unacceptably dangerous and wholly unnecessary. Anybody suggesting otherwise are talking nonsense.

It is impossible to leg tackle without applying some force with the shoulder/chest to the leg. I effected that tackle hundreds of times. I would like to to think every time, if possible, it would be to the thigh, with the arms going lower to lift the player, as it easier not to have to bend your back as much. Some need to think of the practicalities of what they are saying before getting off on one. I am not against any sensible rule change to stamp the Wigan curse out, but the rule is already in place. Someone suggest better wording.

And I bet most of the times you affected that kind of tackle the player was still moving. As SLS said its about the force applied. If a player is stationary or only moving slowly, which is likely if he's held upright by one or two defenders, then there's no need for anything other than minimal force. Enough to wrap the arms around the legs and allow the player to be tipped over by the other defenders that have him held upright.



The danger comes from players running and then diving at the stationary (or very slow moving) legs of a held upright player. Even those that hit on the thigh are running very close to causing serious injury as it only needs a slight mistake to not hit the thigh and to hit the knee. And plenty of players are aiming far too low ie only just (by centimetres) above the knee.



For me it's a part of the game that is unnecessary and can be stamped out without any negative impact on the sport whatsoever.

I've not really thought about that, but you are probably right. I played at a time & standard pre-wrestling & where getting someone to the ground was what tackling was about.





The only way to stamp it out is to prohibit leg tackling when someone is stationary (difficult to know when that exactly is - the player can still have his legs pumping, if not it should be called held anyway) or the tackler must be stationary when efecting a leg tackle on a held player.

Surely the existing rules should cover all this? If a player is held stationary the ref must call held. The player then plays the ball.



It’s up to refs to call held as soon as the player is stationary. They can penalise anyone who comes in around the legs after their call.

Word on the street is that you tag on the knee. Animal.

The pie-eaters' form on this issue goes a LONG way back. I draw the jury's attention to Sam Tomkins' attack to Keiron Cunningham's not just standing - but INJURED - leg several years ago.



One of the most despicable pieces of underhanded play I've seen on a rugby pitch.

Sam Powell looks as though he,s been given the responsibility of doing this type of work, he's just not very good at it at the moment and gets let off a disciplinary charge.

ban the 3rd man from 'charging' in. if a 3rd joins an almost stationary tackle in progress then they must not engage with the tackle at anything over walking speed. i.e sprint up few steps before stop grab hold.

Remember when James Graham did that to Ryan Bailey and the Saints fans were creaming themselves over it? Yeah, me too.

Big girl's blouse.

That was purely a demonstration by Jammer of what Bailey has been doing all his career and was partly justified on Bailey going head high on big Maurie, also Jammer went into the lower ribcage and not below the knee joint.. Saints fans loved it because it proved Bailey can't take it back what he dishes out, I recall Bailey didn,t do much afterwards and resigned to the subs bench, also the rest of the Leeds forwards appeared to accept it without retaliation.