what's with all this hair?

[Eastshire]

Originally Posted by Robert Goodman

No, there's no problem with that, any more than by putting a hand on an opponent's frame one commits a holding foul. There's a big difference between having one's hand or arm touch someone's dangling hair on the one hand and pulling a pony tail on the other. If you can tell the difference between pulling someone's shirt and using an open-palm technique to block, it shouldn't be hard to distinguish hair pulling from legal contact with hair.

If this is thought still to be too dangerous for the player's neck, hair could be required to be tucked into a shirt the same way a medical alert pendant can be secured.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it's legal to tackle a player by grasping the back of his jersey. If you make grasping hair illegal, you will give a serious advantage to long-haired player as the back of the jersey will not be a legal area to tackle them, lest their hair be grasped.

Tucking the hair into the jersey isn't practical as it won't stay there if not secured and if secured sufficiently, the player wouldn't be able to turn his head freely.