All Blacks back row Sam Cane has spoken out about his tackle which rendered Robbie Henshaw unconscious during New Zealand's November victory in Dublin, in light of rugby's new tackle laws which take a harder stance on contact to the head.
The 25-year-old Chiefs openside wasn't sanctioned for his extremely high and dangerous hit on Henshaw two months ago, but revealed to Reuters that he sent Henshaw a text message following the match to apologise for the nature of the hit and damage caused.
The terrible part about it is that he ended up concussed and having to be stretchered off, which no one likes.
I managed to get his phone number the next day and flick him a text.
I did keep an eye to see how long he was out for so it's good to see him back playing.
Cane explained how his own experience with concussion made him feel for the stricken Henshaw, who missed Ireland's following Test with Australia.
The 40-cap All Black admitted that, with the new rules dictating that contact with the head will be reprimanded more severely, tackling in the sport may change. And, despite his bone-crunching hit on Henshaw in November, it's not a change he necessarily disagrees with.
Rugby is about dominating collisions but if we are risking concussions then it's not really worth it.
The biggest collisions happen when you try to make a dominant tackle and tackle with a lot of force and it's hard to adjust late, so we're going to have to be slightly more passive.
I've had to deal with a couple of concussions myself and it's not a nice thing. So maybe we have to be a little smarter and not go in as forcefully as you'd like to.
Cane also elaborated on his tackle on Henshaw itself, and insisted he didn't intend to do the Irish centre harm, but was rather thrown off by Henshaw's unusual movement.
He labelled the incident 'unfortunate', and claimed it was unavoidable while travelling at the speed with which he found himself.
I anticipated he was going to move back into that space but Robbie did a pirouette on the spot, which is very rarely seen on rugby field.
As he did his body height dropped. I had already committed to the tackle and made contact to his head.
One view it looked definitely it was head on head, and then there's another view it looks like shoulder on head.
If you put it on a time frame within the space of a third of a second, my force going one way and his movement... it's just one of those unfortunate incidents in rugby where the collisions happen really quickly.
We're not super human and we can't change direction in the blink of an eye. To have avoided that collision I would have had to have fallen through a trap door.
[stuff.co.nz]
