That it will be Slater’s final match doesn’t and shouldn’t matter, although you can imagine that fact will be in the minds of the three former players making the decision. Slater’s gun defence counsel, Nick Ghabar, will need to come armed with something stronger than sentiment and, on that score, he should have plenty of ammo. Charged: Billy Slater will face the judiciary over his tackle on Sosaia Feki in the preliminary final. Loading It will be an injustice if Slater isn’t cleared to play. It's not a shoulder charge. It's a shoulder collision. The shoulder charge ban was never supposed to outlaw Slater’s "east-west" tackle, which he was making to stop a try in the corner.

The ban was supposed to stop the "north-south" tackle when defenders eyeball a rival player on the opposite side of the ditch, and then throw everything at him, including his shoulder, to knock him into the middle of next week with the ball carrier’s head snapping back like he’s a crash test dummy. The tackle that prompted the newly formed ARL Commission to stamp out the shoulder charge came in 2012 when Souths’ Greg Inglis lined up Dragons hooker Dean Young, collecting him high and leaving him with a severe concussion. "Tell 'Brownie' to put me back on," Young told a Dragons trainer that night, referring to coach Nathan Brown. The only problem was Brown stopped coaching the Dragons in 2008. Slater's alleged shoulder charge is being hotly disputed. Credit:Nine Inglis was suspended for three matches but the poor old shoulder charge was rubbed out forever. The shoulder charge’s best friend, Roosters backrower Sonny Bill Williams, was heartbroken.

"You need good timing and technique to pull off a shoulder charge. Simply put, if you can't do it don't try … This is league not tiddlywinks!" he said in an Instagram post. Typically, the shoulder charge ban involved a lot of grandstanding from officials about player welfare and saving lives and ensuring mums and dads allowed their kiddies to play rugby league instead of AFL. Typically, the same officials overlooked that rugby league tackles aren’t black or white but come in shades of grey. Loading Slater’s grade-one charge has a base penalty of 200 points, which amounts to two matches. It’s extraordinarily disproportionate to other forms of dangerous tackles that attract lesser suspensions. The godforsaken "crusher tackle" is so commonplace these days it often attracts nothing more than a penalty.

Roosters hooker Jake Friend upended Inglis in Saturday night’s preliminary final but is free to play in the grand final because a grade-one dangerous throw only attracts a base penalty of 100 points. Friend gets leniency and has been cleared to play because he has taken the early plea. Tell me which is more dangerous: Slater’s tackle on Feki or Friend’s tackle on Inglis? Doubtless, the Slater hearing will resemble the courtroom reconstruction of the JFK assassination, with Ghabar and the NRL’s prosecutor showing numerous slow-mo replays of shoulder charge tackles to support their case and disprove the other. Slater, though, will try to prove his isn’t a shoulder charge. Final countdown: Billy Slater has an agonising wait to find out if his career is over or not. Credit:NRL Photos In September 2016, Ghabar was successful in getting Canberra fullback Jack Wighton cleared at the judiciary after he was charged for a tackle on Wests Tigers forward Joel Edwards.