I thought we were known for not cutting our cloth, or being the RFLs favourites or playing at an iconic ground.

This post started the thread so it's a good way to finish

Its was great on Friday ,the cost of a transfer into the seated stand was well worth the money.Thanks for a great evening.

Am I the only one to find this hard to believe?

I disagree completely. Players will always play to the very limit of whatever laws are in place. All teams know what the rules of the game are & what the current interpretations are. There are very few naïve or deliberate transgressions that go unpunished, nowhere near enough to remotely spoil the game.

Incidentally I have seen 3 people die at RL games in my 30+ years of watching, at least 2 of those were directly from incidents where sections of the crowd were worked up into a frenzy. People need to get some perspective.

:2m06ewl0
To be honest, I disagree completely.

Players are professionals. They break, or go to the limits of, whatever the rules [or interpretations are, simply because they perceive there is an advantage to be gained from doing so. I have to say you have a different opinion of what constitutes 'very few' than I do as, in general, I see several [I've probably got a different interpretation of the word 'several' than you

The thing that I really don't understand about the PTB is why we play to a different procedure than is specified in the laws. Which state that the ball shall be placed on the ground*

The problem only exists because officials ignore the flagrant breach ogf this simple and basic rule, and instead, allow the ball to be rolled backwards. The rules do not permit this, plain and simple. Propelling the ball behind you is not "placing" it.

We then are told that the refs have been told to interpret the PTB rule in a way that as long as the player has made "a genuine effort" to play the ball with the foot, let it go. And it is this that leads to the ridiculous spectacle of a player lifting a boot as he whangs the ball back to his teammate, making a laughable cursory waft at the ball or even no effort at al, yet play goes on, and his team gets the major advantage.

What should happen is, ball placed on ground as per rule. If the player then made his "genuine attempt", the ball wouldn't move.

The immediate and miraculous effect would be that suddenly all players would manage to play the ball with their foot.



* the rule actually says "place or drop" but the refs ignore the second part and if you drop the ball to the ground they automatically call it a knock-on

I have made my point previously but agree that as the RFL continue to change the rules each season in an effort to speed up the game (especially for Sky viewers), referees allowing the ridiculous throwing the ball to the receiver in the play the ball! Forward passes which result in tries when our friends on SKY often comment "that pass looked a little forward", the game is moving closer towards American Football.

You are missing my point. The PTB & flat passes are not infringements of the current interpretations of the rules. There are virtually no forward passes that players get away with, irrespective of the screams from the Sky commentary box. 1 or 2 in a game generally. I see no real need to change the PTB, it wasn’t a great effort just needed a bit of technique. But they did &, personally I couldn’t give a monkeys as someone at least makes the effort to lift his leg. For the enjoyment of the game & giving an advantage it is almost irrelevant.
If the pass rule was reverted to having to go back we would end up exactly where we are now. With cries that it was 2 yards flat not backwards. Players will be coached to pass as near to flat as possible. Again it is hardly an issue that spoils a game IMO. There are far more errors from players that contribute to defeat in every game than any marginal decisions from officials.

Not sure if anyone’s watched much NRL this season but they have cleaned up their PTB and speeded up the game without it turning into a succession of dummy half scoots. It’s do-able.

The time taken wrestling and messing about is much lower and the game is better as a result. The PTB over here has become too important in my opinion and the tricks employed by players to gain an advantage there are detracting from the more aesthetically pleasing parts of the game.

They have some rules that we’ll definitely see over hear soon like penalising the third man in the tackle if he tackles at the knees or below, compulsory substituting concussed players and 7 tackles from 20m taps when the opposition kicked the ball dead.

Exactly. And any one of our teams playing the way they do would be penalised to death under Aus rules.



Exactly. In fact you can easily see, - if you look for it - the tactics that have spread like wildfire, and because everyone is doing it, some much better than others but everyone, we and the refs just let it go.

I am sick of seeing the tackled player make an extra 2 or 3 meters as he regains his feet. What happened to playing the ball on the mark? I am sick of seeing the player levering himself up with one hand, crouched, while whanging the ball under his rising foot to the acting half back who makes many yards scooting as the defence is not set, and the marker is helpless since as the AHB scots past him, the tackled player is 'accidentally' stumbling into collision with him.


Leaving aside the odd question of wtf the RFL and the ARL can't sit down each close season and decide a joint policy, which must be simultaneously the biggest embarrassment of governance in any international sport, and an enormous finger raised to northern hemisphere rugby league, I watch the NRL and the PTB there seems easy enough for the refs to police extremely consistently without all this performance. You don't really notice their PTB; you kind of know what to expect and you find yourself being able to instinctively tell when a penalty is going to be called.

It just looks so clean, all the more so if you then watch one of our games back to back.

Sadly I never get the chance, but when I used to the game always seemed far more clinical & clean, not necessarily more enjoyable. Obviously there is advantage in the defending team holding the attacker up as long as possible to enable the defence to set. If an attacker can exploit that & get a quick PTB then all credit to him. As long as both feet are on the ground I'm happy with it; I couldn't give a hoot if he still has a hand on the ground.

And that's your choice except that then he hasn't (obviously) "regained his feet" which inconveniently the rules do not allow. So it's not a question of interpretation, it is blatantly against the specific rules. I believe there already is a sport where the man with the ball doesn't even need to try to get up, he just has to release the ball and someone else can take over. Maybe we should try that?

My beef with these illegal PTBs is mainly that the rules also require the defence to retreat the 10, and if these quick but plainly illegal PTBs are allowed then frequently the defence hasn't retired and some players are taken out of the game by the illegal PTB, and in many other cases the defence is still on the back foot, each situation giving the attacking team an unfair and considerable advantage.

Exactly! A further point would be that [iif[/i a professional player made a GENUINE attempt to touch the ball with his foot he'd surely do it 99 times out of a hundred, or he wouldn't be fit to call a professional.

My real beef is with the laws of the game though; if there is a general wish to speed up the game by throwing the ball back between the legs and allowing forward passes, then the laws should reflect this common desire. You can't have a situation, as now, where the refs allow one thing and the laws, quite distinctly, say something quite different - it would make the game a joke and disgrace..

This.

And I would only add that, IF the top of the RFL's list was to some day beat the Aussies and be World Champs, then we are putting our players at an even greater disadvantage by instilling in them techniques that simply will not be tolerated on the international stage. Why doesn't the penny drop that the NRL is appreciably faster and cleaner than ours - yet with the PTB properly enforced?

There is no policy of tolerating forward passes though, you are making that up. It just looks far worse than the good old days when we would regularly beat the Aussies because we now allow flat passes.

The NRL is certainly more clinical and clean in comparison with SL. The NRL commentators have all said how much it has improved as a spectacle compared with last year. I didn't watch it last year but in comparison with SL now it's like a different world. NRL games are far more entertaining and as such I can't be ar5ed with watching any SL at all unless my obligation to have to watch the Bulls kicks in which is sadly, increasingly rare. The two games are like chalk and cheese.

Refs over there seem to call held quicker to stop deliberate holding up of players and there's more policing of the ruck. Obviously having two refs helps and it doesn't eradicate refs mistakes. It does make for a better game.

Time the RLIF, NRL, ARL, SL and RFL got together and adopted the Aussie interpretations en bloc. In the past I'd be reluctant to just follow what they do but the evidence points to them being streets ahead in how they interpret the game.

People rightly complain about wrestling technique & defence solely designed to slow down the PTB. All this is to the defending team's advantage. If an attacker can get to his feet & a quick PTB, with or without a hand on the deck, then all credit to him. It should be encouraged.

Agree with this , I've watched a fair number of NRL games this year and found that the officials police the game far better.

This may be due to the extra ref, but you hardly seem to hear anyone complaining about a decision made. The refereeing errors are far less than what you see in SL. I also like the way the Video Ref can be called upon during the game to help with the outcome of a decision.

They do spend a bit too much time on the video ref IMO but I agree.

Another noticable difference is the commentators. No endless disection of refereeing decisions and expert comment that you actually learn something from.

Amazing stuff.

We are now a society that focuses on negativity, whereas Aussies seem far more optimistic. I think the commentating is a reflection of that. The commentating in the WC, with that Aussie bloke & Noble was a joy c/w the Sky muppets or Ray French.

Agreed. Ray used to try not to dwell on refereeing decisions in the past. “He’s the final arbiter!” he used to declare to diffuse Alex Murphy or Peter Fox berating the ref. Recently he got drawn in by Jonathan Davies’s whinging.

As for Eddie and Stevo I can’t be doing with them at all. They’re way past their sell by date. Eddie should stick to calling the game instead of coming out with ill informed opinion and Stevo should be pensioned off as he’s a parody of himself. You could just put a looped tape of random Stevo-isms together and it’d be as informative as his actual analysis.

Flat passes have always been legal, though I'd accept that, in the hurly burly of a game, it must be hard for the ref/touchie to differentiate at times.

I think you've got the wrong phrase when you say it looks worse; it doesn't 'look' worse, it is worse. This is entirely because we now, more than previously, are looking to play much more for the 'line ball', and the more you deliberately play to the line, the more likely you are to cross it from time to time. Seems obvious to me and I'm sure there are people on here who could come up with a probability chart which would prove that assertion totally, though I'm not one of them...

You say, "there is no policy of tolerating forward passes", well, I'm sure that probably is the official line, but if there really is no policy then it looks bad for the people who are supposed to police it, because it's clearly happening on a regular basis. I fully appreciate it's easier to spot higher up in the stands where you can look down on play, but sometimes I despair at what the touch judges fail to spot. AND, before you ask, yes, we do get away with as many as everyone else - but it doesn't make it right.

But if you have regained your feet, then, unless you are of the configuration of an ape, or the tackler pulled your arm our of the socket, your hand cannot be on the ground, or if it is, you will be leaning over in a weird way; either way, you wouldn't be gaining any advantage (though still breaking the rule) but this doesn't occur so it's just academic.

What I think you mean is the player in the intermediate stage, neither on the ground nor got up, pushing himself up with one arm and playing the ball as soon as he is in a three-point kind of stance position. I would argue that this is not legal, as if at that moment someone knocked his arm away he would fall back over, as he is still in the act of completing getting to his feet - and so i would say has not "regained his feet". Nearly, but not quite.

What we are actually talking about is the player on the ground, who effectively saves considerable time by, instead of standing up, clambering forwards over the ball as he rolls it backwards. I'm not complaining about trivial breaches of the rule, but about very significant breaches, which create a very significant advantage.

Wrestling is a separate discussion, but if we are to touch on it here, then you can wrestle as much as you want till the ref shouts "held" and so I don't agree that is the PTB issue. The main ways wrestling helps is to either create a delay between when the man is stopped, and the actual PTB, so that preventing the man going to ground gives the advantage; or if the man is going to ground, trying to ensure he is either turtled, or facing the wrong way, or both.

The point we are talking about hasn't occurred yet in either instance though. It's what he does immediately after the ref calls 'held' which we are discussing.

Oddly enough, the three point stance position seems to give the greatest chance of failure, because often, as the player starts to rise, steps forward and into the marker, while rolling the ball back, the marker puts a hand on him and the player falls back forward to teh ground as the ball rolls away. The crowd calls for a pen for interference at the PTB but the most frequent call tere will be a pen against the attacker, for not having got up before playing the ball. My question would be, though, if that's the case, why does it need him to be pushed back to ground? Why let it go if he's not?

I'm pretty sure there is. Simply on the basis that a few of the outrageous forward passes that we regularly see I refuse to believe can have been seen by everyone in the ground from every angle, except by coincidence the three officials. So it must be they choose to let these go, and that in turn, is to me, much more likely to be some general policy rather than either incompetence or conspiracies or other dotty notions.