Sydney Roosters coach Trent Robinson warns against NFL-style kick-off change

“For me, growing up as a kid and now playing the game, I think it’s one of the most iconic parts of the game. Not just every week round game, but you think about Origin as well,” he said on Sky Sport’s Radio.

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“I don’t think there’s much difference between those [kick-off collisions] and an outside back returning a kick return into a straight line … I think it’s just part of our game, and it’s a part where the likes of someone like Tom Burgess, that’s one of his big strengths for us is we put him on a kick-off carry, there’s a good chance we start that set on the front foot.”

For Robinson, it’s about balancing player safety and the reality of contact sport.

“We are a contact sport, so we’re not going to go away from being a contact sport,” he said. “Then you’ve got the other side of it. It’s a bit like boxing, how do you make boxing safer? The way to make boxing safer is to make better rules within the ring about how does someone get protected when they’re in the ring if something does happen, and then what happens outside of the ring, and I think we’re getting a lot better at those.

“So, how do we hold the essence of our sport, and the uniqueness of it, and protect our players? I think we’ve got to keep heading [down] that path, but not make some game-changing decisions that other sports have made, that make it unrecognisable to the contact sports.”

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