NRL rule interpretation changes 2011 : Tue Mar 15, 2011 11:26 am  

Having now watched all the televised games from the NRL over the weekend, I can congratulate the NRL officials controller Bill Harrigan for his latest focus on rule interpretation in Aus. They have got it right this year and SL should follow suit.

I know our governing bodies do get it wrong sometimes at the start of the season, much to the annoyance of the fans, but if you havent seen any of the NRL, the ref's have been told to penalise at the play the ball where the tackled player gets up and moves off the mark. Over the weekend, we saw a few penalties for players who wrestled to get up and then stood to the side of the markers to get a quick PTB and also, a couple of penalties for players walking forward into the markers to nullify their effect on the next attacking play.

This is an element of the SL game over here that really frustrates the hell out of me. After a couple of penalties, the players soon got the message and we then settled down to some excellent entertainment that relied on skill, speed and power, not just bash and barge up the middle from an artificially quick (illegal) play the ball.

I really hope Cummins does something similar over here - but then again, we are always years behind the Australians so I expect not.

Re: NRL rule interpretation changes 2011 : Tue Mar 15, 2011 2:22 pm  

No doubt Cummings will put something in place that relies on the refs interpretation of the rules and we wont have any consistency from week to week

Re: NRL rule interpretation changes 2011 : Tue Mar 15, 2011 2:58 pm  

The Chief wrote:

Having now watched all the televised games from the NRL over the weekend, I can congratulate the NRL officials controller Bill Harrigan for his latest focus on rule interpretation in Aus. They have got it right this year and SL should follow suit.

I know our governing bodies do get it wrong sometimes at the start of the season, much to the annoyance of the fans, but if you havent seen any of the NRL, the ref's have been told to penalise at the play the ball where the tackled player gets up and moves off the mark. Over the weekend, we saw a few penalties for players who wrestled to get up and then stood to the side of the markers to get a quick PTB and also, a couple of penalties for players walking forward into the markers to nullify their effect on the next attacking play.

This is an element of the SL game over here that really frustrates the hell out of me. After a couple of penalties, the players soon got the message and we then settled down to some excellent entertainment that relied on skill, speed and power, not just bash and barge up the middle from an artificially quick (illegal) play the ball.

I really hope Cummins does something similar over here - but then again, we are always years behind the Australians so I expect not.

Amen to that. Now get them to play the ball with the foot.
How many times do we see the tackled player walk forward leaving the tackler in the ruck area, and the tackler get penalised. You then hear Mick and Montmorrency screaming from our tvs that the tackler should roll away.

I've aired my views many times about the play the ball being too advantageous to the attacking side.

Re: NRL rule interpretation changes 2011 : Tue Mar 15, 2011 5:27 pm  

It's definitely something that needs sorting, the latest complete change in the speed of the ruck has increased it even further to the point where half of the tackles are often 3 or 4 yards off the mark.

It rarely gets penalised over here, but Ganson sometimes clamps down on it. I remember him pinging Fielden (who was almost made a career out of it) quite a few times in the past.