The martial arts expert who first taught wrestling techniques to rugby league players has damned his peers for their approach in introducing dangerous throws and grapples and warned the NRL to act immediately because of the high chance of serious injury.
Chris Haseman, who still works with the Broncos and has taught a generation of players, said referees needed to be fully versed in wrestling techniques, and that the NRL judiciary panel should include someone with a wrestling background.
"In order to be able to police an offence, you need to know what the offence is," he warned.
Haseman, who joined the Broncos in 1998, knows a wide variety of holds from martial arts and was sharply critical of the tackle of Sam Thaiday by Cam and Jeremy Smith in Saturday night's loss to the Storm because of the risk of permanent damage.
"I actually thought it was a really dangerous tackle," Haseman said. "I saw it very much as a grappling move, straight out of the grappling book.
"It will end bad. That's inevitable. It's not if - it's when. You're getting numbers in the tackle and you're adding joint manipulation. At the end of the day, something's going to snap."
So bad have things become that Haseman, a mixed martial arts and cage fighter of international repute, said rugby league was giving wrestling a bad name.
"Wrestling is not the enemy. There are some great skills that come from wrestling that are very useable in rugby league," Haseman said, emphasising that he coaches body positioning and balancing to develop effective tackles. "But once you get into jujitsu and martial arts tactics, that's an area of danger. Wrestling is being given a bad name."
Leonid Zaslavsky, a wrestling coach with the Australian Olympic wrestling team in Beijing, backed Haseman's comments. The Smith tackle would never be taught or permitted in wrestling, he said. Rugby league was giving the sport a bad name.
"The biggest problem is he [Smith] is taking him backwards against his own spine, which is a big no-no in wrestling. If it was a wrestling match, it would be stopped. And if he tried again, he would be penalised and even disqualified. It is definitely not a wrestling technique gone wrong. Saying this is wrestling is absolute and utter nonsense," he said.
Haseman, who was brought to the Broncos by Storm coach Craig Bellamy when he was Wayne Bennett's assistant, insists he has no regrets at his pioneering role at the Broncos, saying Bennett had always monitored everything he taught. Haseman also provided Bellamy with the introduction to Storm wrestling guru John Donehue when Bellamy took over in 2003.
"Unfortunately, people saw it [what Haseman did] as a great opportunity to bring the add-ons - neck locks, face cranks, spine cranks and chicken wings or whatever you want to call them," he said.
What makes martial arts techniques particularly dangerous in rugby league is that players are often pinned - as Thaiday was - by another tackler. "In one-on-one wrestling, there's nothing holding you on the ground and you'll probably go with it. The danger in football is that you have one or two other anchor points that secure the direction of the ball carrier. There's no opportunity to tap [surrender] or submit," he said. "And the referees aren't trained in it. In grappling or wrestling, referees are well versed in those skills and have a very good understanding of their application and when to get in there and intervene. With a football referee, that's not the case."
The NRL desperately needed to bring an understanding of wrestling to both referees and the judiciary, Haseman argued. "It's a classic case of you don't know what you don't know," he said.
The time for the NRL to draw a line in the sand on wrestling was years ago, Haseman said. "If the NRL is saying, 'This is how we want to play football', and Melbourne are using that threshold to apply these skills, then good on Melbourne. Craig [Bellamy] is doing everything that he's allowed to get away with," he said.
"But it's not about the Storm, it's about rugby league and making the sure the NRL get the framework of play fairly governed. There have to be some lines in the sand. If there aren't, then I think every team has the right to implement skills and tactics until they're told they can't do it."
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