Will Chambers crusher tackle: Phil Gould takes aim at 'wrong, premeditated' incident

Angus Reid

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Will Chambers crusher tackle: Phil Gould takes aim at 'wrong, premeditated' incident image

If Phil Gould and Paul Gallen had their way, Melbourne would be without Will Chambers for a lot longer than three weeks.

The Storm centre was charged with a crusher tackle on Parramatta's Jarryd Hayne during the NRL's round 23, and will only miss three rounds of football after an early guilty plea.

This means that Melbourne will be without their representative back for the remaining two games of the regular season, as well as the first week of finals.

You can watch the distressing incident in the video below.


 

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While Chambers will be forced to sit in the stands for multiple weeks, Gould wasn't impressed with the Storm player's intent.

"He's lucky to get away with what he did," Gould said on 100% Footy.

"Could you imagine what would have happened if Jarryd Hayne breaks his neck or something really serious happened?

"Terrible, I thought it was an awful tackle.

"There are very few times in rugby league where you look at it and say, 'that's totally wrong'.

"You can understand things happen in the spur of the moment on the field, but this looked premeditated.

"That's the worst thing I've seen for a long time. 

"Generally, while players are competitive and they don't care if they hurt each other, they're not out to deliberately do anything bad to one another.

"But, that was just wrong what he did there."

The Sharks captain believed Chambers was incredibly lucky to only receive a sanction of three weeks.

"I think he's lucky there," Gallen said.

"That was a bad one. That was as bad as I've seen. He made no effort to release his head and get him on the ground.

"He locked his arm around to lock his neck in place against his hip and then jumped.

"That's almost a classic crusher. Three weeks, he should have been jumping at it."

Angus Reid

Angus Reid Photo