Cunningham calls for dangerous tackle ban

St Helens coach Kieron Cunningham has called for dangerous tackles that attack the knee to be banned from rugby league.

Castleford centre Michael Shenton is out for the rest of the season from one of these tackles and Saints flyer Mark Percival will be out for the next few months after another.

“This is something I’ve told the Rugby League about,” Cunningham told PA Sport.

“There probably won’t be any repercussions but there should be because we’ve lost a player for the best part of 12 weeks.

“It’s a swing round, drop on the back of the legs which a lot of players say they can’t help but I know otherwise. I played the game for 18 years.

“We’re going to see what the specialists say but that’s two weeks in a row where we’ve basically seen season-ending knee injuries and we’ve got to do something about these tackles.

“Unless we outlaw them, we’ll see more and more of these injuries. We’ve had three broken legs in the space of 12 months and a lot of them involving tackles like this.

“The NRL have completely stamped it out but we seem more concerned about what people think about the bans.”