Motherwell boss Stuart Kettlewell says the Scottish FA needs to crack down on strikers ‘making a back’ for defenders, in what he classes as the most dangerous challenge in any sport.
Ahead of Saturday’s trip to face Hibs at Easter Road, the Fir Park club’s physios will need to assess defender Liam Gordon who crashed to the artificial surface at Kilmarnock’s Rugby Park during Wednesday night’s 0-0 draw, under one of those challenges by striker Marley Watkins.
Former St Johnstone captain Gordon rose to head the ball away, with Watkins putting his hips in, causing the defender to fall over the top of him, head-first, onto the pitch.
Kilmarnock boss Derek McInnes was furious to see his star booked for the challenge, but Kettlewell has been talking about incidents such as these for at least a year, and wants more people to be aware of the dangers.
Kettlewell said: “You see Liam Gordon coming off the park, with two really heavy blows. Not a concussion, I have to say, so the guys are pretty content with that, but we will have to assess him.
“The first one is the challenge that I’ve been speaking about for a long time, it’s the one where the defender goes to attack the ball, and I keep talking about this ‘making a back’ as they call it in rugby, that’s exactly what happens.
“The defender is committed, off the ground, and as soon as you put any kind of touch on the defender, put your backside in, lean in to him, you’ll see what happens.
“We’ve actually got a still where he [Gordon] goes full length and is landing on a really hard surface, and it’s his neck and his head that’s breaking the fall, which is never a good thing.
“There are a lot of complaints, I think, about Marley Watkins getting yellow carded, but it’s nailed-on for me, in this modern day.
“The referee sees that, and understands it. I don’t think that the striker is trying to hurt him, but that’s a sending off offence in rugby.
“That’s not necessarily what I’m suggesting, but it’s just that we really need to be careful with those ones.
“The referee saw it last night, and it’s a small step forward that the referee recognised that.”
Kettlewell added: “I think there needs to be a bit more education on those types of challenges. I think we all have to take it seriously, I really do.
“In football we say ‘it’s not a bad tackle, he’s not trying to hurt anyone’, but it’s arguably the most dangerous one you’re going to get in any sport – not just football.
“Rugby have taken that one really seriously now, and I think we need to follow suit to a point of trying to protect people from head and neck injuries.
“We’re trying to bring this to people’s attention, we have done for a long time. Does it take Liam Gordon with a really serious head or neck injury before we actually start to say ‘we need to watch this’.
“If you see the centre-back, or any player for that matter, in a dominant position, they’re fully off the ground, unless you’re jumping with him, I don’t think you can plant your feet on the ground, put your hips in, and take their lower half and make them go out of control.
“We need to know and understand what we’re looking at.
“The referee saw it last night, and I’m not saying there’s any malice from Marley Watkins, but when the opposition player is off the ground I think you need to leave that. I don’t think you can go into a striker contact at that point, unless you’re going to get off the ground.”
Kettlewell takes incidents like those so seriously it has changed his approach to his own players.
“I tell my strikers not to do that, it’s something we speak about on a daily basis, trying to educate them within training,” he said, “but I love the contact element of this sport, I need to make that very clear.”