Melbourne Storm prop Jordan McLean has been found guilty of a careless lifting tackle which has left young Alex McKinnon a quadraplegic as a result.
The NRL judiciary met tonight in the most important judiciary meeting in the game's history and are now deliberating over the sentence to hand out to McLean.
In the last few minutes, we have learnt that 22-year-old McLean has been banned him for 7 weeks - this effectively means McLean is out of footie until late May - during this time, hopefully the Melbourne Storm will come to his aide and support him during this difficult time.
It is very unfortunate for young McLean who will recover from this but will have to cope with this big stain on his career for the rest of his life.
The result is probably about right but ultimately does not change the tragic circumstances that Alex McKinnon and his loved ones face right now.
However, the NRL will hope that it will send the right message to players as it aims to clamp down on head-to-ground-first tackles and avoid tragedies like McKinnon's in the future.
A number of commentators have questioned the length of Jordan's ban claimng it to be excessive considering Alex "contributed to his own injury by tucking his head under". I think those claims are 100% rubbish! No doubt Alex thought he was going to be flipped and tucked his head to avoid direct impact to his neck and spine. As it turned out, there was no "flip" and the rest is history. As a professional sportsman, Jordan and the Storm management need to accept that when you place another player in a dangerous position by tipping over the horizontal, you take responsibility for any related resulting injury. Alex should have never been put in the position where he had to make a split second decision to tuck, or not to tuck. 3 months is what I was hoping for. Never again should we see an injury like this in league or union for that matter. My best wishes to Alex and his recovery (NZ league & union Supporter).
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