Alex McKinnon and the Difficult Decision Dividing Rugby League
Why are league fans so divided by Alex McKinnon’s decision to pursue legal action over the tackle that left him quadraplegic, and what could it mean for the sport? Jarret Filmer explains.
Former Newcastle Knights second-rower Alex McKinnon today announced that he will be pursuing legal action against the NRL and Melbourne Storm prop Jordan McLean over the tackle which caused severe spinal injuries that have left him quadriplegic. To suggest that this decision was divisive is a little bit like suggesting that David Boon was fond of the odd beer.
Some fans seem aggravated by the idea that McKinnon has violated some unwritten code of rugby league by pursuing a legal resolution to the situation. Rugby league is a violent game but it doesn’t need to be ugly. The NRL has a duty of care to ensure that all players understand their responsibility to protect themselves and their opponents when they step onto the field. The tackle made by Jordan McLean that saw McKinnon injured was ultimately deemed an accident, but just because it wasn’t the product of malicious intent doesn’t mean that the NRL is blameless. As an employer they have a duty to provide a safe workplace and reduce the risk of harm to its players. If McKinnon had suffered his injury in any other workplace I doubt there would be very many questioning his right to pursue legal remedy.
Other fans seem aggrieved that McKinnon has decided to sue the NRL and Jordan McLean after the NRL offered an unprecedented amount of support to him following his injury in the form of the ‘Rise for Alex’ round and the offer of a ‘job for life’. A cynical interpretation might suggest that these events were organized in a pre-emptive attempt to win public support and head off the possibility of just such legal action. A more charitable suggestion is that the NRL was not prepared to deal with such an incident and were doing the best they could the only way they knew how. In any event it is a bit churlish to suggest that McKinnon should take what he has been given and fade silently into the background – he is a young man facing a life full of complications and this law suit might represent his last, best chance at determining his future.
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Some suggest that McKinnon contributed to the severity of his injury by ‘ducking’ his head while being tackled in order to milk a penalty. While it certainly seems possible that McKinnon contributed to his injury it’s the sort of thing that should be determined by experts rather than loud blokes in threadbare Balmain jerseys. At the very least by the end of this process there should be a clear understanding of everyone’s responsibilities, from the players to match officials to the NRL itself.
McKinnon’s lawsuit could prompt a whole slew of changes, ranging from the introduction of new measures designed to limit the potential for a reoccurrence of a similar incident to increasing the penalties for reckless play, or even something as drastic as eliminating the third player in the tackle or introducing weight restrictions.
This is possibly the most confronting element for many long term fans. For a sport that has traded on its history of unashamed violence and brutality rugby league faces the difficult prospect of ensuring the game survives into the 21st century without compromising what made fans love it in the first place.
The NRL obviously understands that it must be most forceful in prosecuting its duty of care – in recent years the shoulder charge has been binned, fighting now results in an immediate, automatic on field sanction and a whole menagerie of exotic infringements from the chicken wing to the prowler have been implemented to protect the tackled player. McKinnon’s legal case will answer whether the NRL still has work to do.
At the heart of this story is a young man who in the course of an instant went from living his dream to being trapped in a nightmare. We want everyone affected by tragedy to be a perfect victim, to act with the precise amount of courage, humility and contrition that makes us feel good about bearing witness to their suffering. Some fans are convinced that McKinnon’s decision to seek a legal remedy is a poke in the eye of the charity NRL and the wider rugby league community who swung into support of him after his injury. While the impulse to label McKinnon churlish is, on some level, understandable, it is also hopelessly short sighted – he is facing a life of massive health challenges and uncertainty and if he feels as though he lacks the financial certainty to confront that future then it’s hard to blame him for doing what he feels is necessary.
At the very least it must be acknowledged that McKinnon’s decision to pursue legal action is exceptionally courageous. He has now opened himself up to immense public scrutiny and vitriol, his every decision now open to debate, spurning the role of dutiful victim so he can pursue his own destiny as best he can.
As sports fans we are conditioned to view everything through the lens of the contest, an epic battle between opposed forces, good triumphing over evil, underdogs pulling off unbelievable upsets. We like players slot into easy roles – the hero, the villain, the underachiever, the journeyman. There is something comforting about the familiarity of these stories, a common language that is both binding and soothing.
When something like the McKinnon incident happens these stories fail us. There are too many complexities, too many shades of grey, too much reality. We want to force those familiar roles onto the players involved but they don’t simply fit. The beauty of sport is that it reduces the world to something small and understandable but the enormity and complexity of a situation like this defies reduction.
Empathy isn’t a game of winners and losers and we don’t have a finite amount of sympathy. It’s possible for us to feel compassion for McKinnon’s plight while also feeling for Jordan McLean and empathising with the difficult situation the NRL finds itself in and worrying about the future of the game we love so much. Sometimes it’s more important to be human than a fan.
Comments on RugbyPass
Let’s not forget about Ardie Savea just yet.
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1 Go to comments“While Sotutu should start at No.8 for the All Blacks against England, but it’s only in that arena that he can prove just how good he really is.” And that my friends is where simply hasnt shone despite multiple opportunities. Even in this performance you can see what did him in in the test arena..he almost always still runs at the opposition almost ramrod upright making him easier to stop than it should be.
4 Go to commentsShould have been 0-0 and a message from SR CEO to both teams - “don’t worry about turning up next year”.
4 Go to commentsGreat work Owen Franks. A great of this team, scoring his first try for the Crusaders since 2010.He was beaming, justifiably. A fine win, he and the rest did the job up front.
1 Go to commentsDanny Care. Lang in die tand.
1 Go to commentsBig empty stadium does nothing for atmosphere but munster are playing well with solid performance
1 Go to commentsYes, Fiji can win the World Cup! With that belief plus their christian faith🙏 and hard work it is achievable. Great article. Ian Duncan Fiji resident 1981-84
2 Go to commentsInteresting comments about Touch. England’s hosting the Touch World Cup this year and the numbers have exploded since their last World Cup in 2019, something like 70% more teams and 40 nations taking part. And England Touch have made a big thing about how many universities are in their BUCS University Touch Championship as well as Sport England membership. Can only see this growing even more domestically as more people become aware of it
10 Go to comments“Cortez Ratima is light years ahead of anyone on current form, while TJ Perenara has also skyrocketed into contention following the unfortunate injury to the talented Cam Roigard.” At last some sanity. Hitherto so many pundits have been wittering on about Finlay Christie to the point one wondered if they were observing a FC in a parallel universe where the FC they saw wasnt just the mediocre Shayne Philpott project of Fosters hapless AB reign in the real world. Ratima, Perenara and Fakatava are the ONLY logical 9s for Razor now Roigard is crocked.
4 Go to commentsThis game was just as painful as the Hurricanes game. It was real fork-in-the-eye stuff.
4 Go to commentsNow if they could just fire the Crusaders ground PA guy who likes to play his dance music and just loves the sound of his own voice the entire game, even when play is going on. And I thought their brass band thing of a few years ago was bad.
5 Go to commentsUnfortunately when you lose by far the two form players this season in Roigard and Aumua, you're left replacing two game changing Tanks with a couple of pea-shooters. Which is also about the speed of TJs pass.
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4 Go to commentsThe Chiefs definitely didn’t win ugly. They had the superior scrum, a dominant lineout, and their defence was excellent once the Waratahs scored their two tries (thanks to some lucky refereeing calls mind you). They put pressure on the Waratahs lineout throughout the game, and the mind boggles as to why the referee did not award a yellow card or a penalty try against the Waratahs for repeated scrum infringements on their own try line before Narawa’s first try. And the Chiefs were slick with their passing and running angles on attack. It was a dominant performance all round, even with many questionable refereeing decisions.
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