1 Apr 2014

Call for ban on lift tackles

4:48 pm on 1 April 2014

Australia's peak sports medicine body has called for a ban on lift tackles in all football codes, following the horrific injury to National Rugby League player Alex McKinnon.

The 22-year-old Newcastle back-rower is facing life in a wheelchair amid reports that he has been diagnosed as a quadriplegic, after McKinnon fractured two vertebrae last Monday landing on his neck in a three-man tackle against Melbourne.

Sports Medicine Australia chief executive Nello Marino says the only way all sporting codes, not just rugby league, can sufficiently prevent such injuries is to outlaw tackles in which a player's legs are lifted from the ground and their body inverted.