Marcus Horan: Players must be taught to tackle properly

Former Irish international Marcus Horan believes that the World Rugby’s new tackle law is only part of the solution to combatting concussion and serious injuries in the sport.

The rule states that any contact with the head in “reckless tackles” will be penalised with at least a yellow card.

But Horan, now head coach of Shannon RFC, believes there is an onus on coaches and players to develop improved tackling techniques as well to prevent serious injuries. He reasoned: “The thinking behind it is to protect the guys being tackled but we have a lot of injuries to the guy making the tackle through poor technique, so I don’t know how that is going to help.