You cannot sugar-coat a bitter pill.
It's high time I took the gloves off and wrote about something that has been driving me mad for the past five or six years.
Many of my footy buddies in my peer group — and I am 50 — are sick and tired of the poison that is eroding the game: the wrestling.
The obsession by the coaches — and they are all to blame — to teach and perfect the techniques for the players to choke players around the neck, lay all over them, twist their bodies, lock up their torsos with their arms, use their legs like a pair of scissors around their legs and hips, flop the tackled player on their back . . , the list is endless, and it's turning me off the game.
When I grew up, a chicken wing was something you ordered at KFC. Now the chicken wing is one of the ugly and damaging tackles employed by many teams in the NRL.
Melbourne and Souths are the worst culprits.
Then there is the fireman's carry in which two or three defenders hold up the attacker and lift him back into the in-goal area to get a drop-out.
To make matters worse, it goes in sync with my other hatred — and that is how some players only play on certain parts of the field: the left, the right or in the middle.
Some of the NRL footy this year has been good. Some games have been average — to say the least.
The other thing that irks me is when it gets to the fifth tackle the first receiver then puts in a high crossfield kick for his left winger or centre or right winger or centre to score a try.
One way to get rid the wrestling is cut the interchange from 10 to six or even four.
It will mean Adonis-like forwards who play in two or three short bursts in a game will have to stay on the field longer or even be replaced and won't be fresh enough to wrestle attackers or run at smaller players on the fringes of the ruck.
Altering the 10-metre rule to, say, seven metres won't work, as the players are bigger and powerfully built and there will be less space between the attacking and defensive teams.
The other problem is these practices are filtering through to the junior system.
The junior coach of, say, an under-12s or 13s team starts teaching his players to wrestle the opposition and control the ruck.
That's not coaching, that's a brain-dead approach.
The NSW Rugby League should issue an edict for juniors: no wrestling.
The NRL should issue the memo to all coaches and clubs: wrestling is banned, and so too employing wrestling coaches.
Then also cut the interchange rule, and the natural footballers in the game will play not only with their skills but also their minds to find the space.
If players and officials and coaches think wrestling is fun they should join the US professional wrestling circuit and ply their trade.
The public has had enough and that's killing our game.
Can we stop the biggest blight in the game: wrestling?
