BY CURTIS WOODWARD

@woodward_curtis

A few weeks back The Daily Telegraph’s Paul Kent went to town on his former Triple M colleague Anthony Maroon and the ‘social media snowflakes’ in a column after an intriguing exchange during the radio station’s rugby league broadcast on the 1st of May which ended in Maroon walking out and Kent quitting.

It’s a tricky spot.

The audio is quite clear-cut.

Kent’s follow-up opinion piece got many noses out of joint but that was his position and fair enough.

He’s a veteran and understands his role in rugby league land and how best to make his money.

The brooding Kent has spent years in front of the cameras on Fox Sports’ NRL 360 show shooting down silly suggestions from co-hosts, special guests and all those “idiots” he doesn’t like – most of them according to Kent – are apparently on Twitter.

It was only Monday night so there was plenty the Fox League panel could have discussed.

Heaps of action from the weekend.

Plenty of gossip.

So why did, of all things, Kent question Brandon Smith’s tackling style?

How very peculiar.

Paul Kent is worried about one of the game’s great characters (and players) and a couple of impressive, intense, technically-sound low tackles on bigger bodies.

Huh?

In a yarn published at 6.43pm on Monday night on The Daily Telegraph website, around the same time he mentioned it on NRL 360, Kent compared Smith’s technique to the horrid cannonball, grapple and chicken wing tackles.

The article first mentions a quote from ‘Annesley’.

That’s Graham Annesley – head of football elite competitions for those playing at home.

“They were reviewed,” Annesley said of the tackles on Jason Taumalolo and Kyle Feldt.

“They are just legs tackles, there’s nothing out of the ordinary.”

Fin.

But wait… there’s more.

“In each, Brandon Smith comes in from the side and gets to the ball-runner first, driving in at the region between the knee and hip, though closer to the knee, and drives through the tackle,” Kent writes.

“Such is the force Smith that drives, Feldt and Taumalolo both shift sideways.”

That’s generally what happens when a defender wants to come out of the line and make a tackle – from the side. The ball-runner goes sideways.

In the first tackle, Smith hits Taumalolo across the thigh.

There’s also evidence that Smith wasn’t even the first contact in the tackle.

The second tackle sees Smith’s arm wrap around Feldt with his left shoulder making contact with the winger’s hip… nowhere near the ball-runner’s knees.

“In the Cowboys coaching box, suspicions were aroused,” Kent went on.

‘“The tactics were to go low and hard into the legs,” a Cowboys insider said.

‘“Most teams coach their guys to hit hard around the bottom of the arse, but they were real low.”’

The quote from the unnamed source was absolutely stunned that a finely-tuned, aggressive representative star had the capability to ‘go low’ and ‘hard’.

Even though they weren’t that low.

The game has done a tremendous job cleaning up high tackles and foul play but there is absolutely no way you can stop a player from making a legs tackle.

You just can’t.

A defensive line has a split second to push up and engage with the ball-runner.

Are we now going to ban a player from going up before his teammates and making a technically good tackle just because his colleagues get there a moment later?

Keep your guns at home, Mr. Kent.

You shot too soon.

Similar mechanisms for Jason Taumalolo & Kyle Feldt. Outside contact from tackler causing knee to collapse in, main concerns for MCL sprain (moderate-high grade, 3-4 weeks best case if confirmed) considering traumatic nature. ACL can be at risk but hoping avoided in both cases pic.twitter.com/hWbmjP4qJ0

— NRL PHYSIO (@nrlphysio) May 21, 2022

But then this from the News Corp scribe…

“Once or even twice is an accident but if it continues it is a technique, and a worrying one, and once again the NRL must intervene.

“The simple solution is for the Storm to have a quiet word with Smith to alleviate any future problems, before DEFCON 2 is reached.”

DEFCON levels go from 5 (lowest) to 1 (highest) for those still playing at home.

In one breath, we’re giving the Storm the benefit of the doubt?

The next we’re winking at the NRL and elbowing them in the ribs?

And to finish, we have the hide to tell the legendary Craig Bellamy how to coach one of his biggest stars?

Do we seriously think Bellamy is now coaching his players to cannon, front-first into attacking players’ knees to cause injury?

Come on.

There was no contact with the knees, anyway.

The stuff of fairy tales.

@woodward_curtis