The game is stale and tired ,the coaching within the game is dominated by the emphasis of statistics. We have the best three quarters in the game ,moon and Watkins. Yet we have no half backs to serve them.
The game at the moment consists of five drives and a kick. More times than not the kick is woeful, Some of last seasons games
elevated boredom to a new height.
The game is lacking genuine talent at a level I have never witnessed before. Sadly the game is also badly managed by any so called marketing skills. I had to search online to find out the details and venue for the Scotland Kiwi match. If you add in the odsal debacle it just about sums up the whole game at the moment.

We can thank the Australians for that. What we play now is a version of the grind down and punish mistakes RL that the NRL created. We just play a p!$$ poor imitation of it without the skill. We've taken the worst of our game and combined it with the worst of the Australian game - ironically because of the beatings we 've had at international level making us try and copy Australian tactics. William mentions we were competitive between '88 and '94, and we were. At that time I reckon we still had players who'd come through junior rugby who were pacy, skillful and threw the ball everywhere, and we'd got our fitness up to speed (in '82 we were so far behind just on basic conditioning we couldn't compete at all). Fitness and conditioning (and stats) should supplement skill, but really, these days you are either fit or you're not and everybody should be fit for the level they play at now. I am sick of posters rolling out in game statistics on this board and others as if that defines a "good" performance. It doesn't. If Ryan Hall makes 4 tackles in a game and misses one that's a completion ratio of 75%, who cares. I want to see Phil Ford running around people, Ali Lauititi with the "peanut" in one massive had looking for a mad offload, not someone with a 95% tackle completion record.
Every now and then you get a glimpse of what the game could be like if you let players off the leash more often - Cuthbertson was a breath of fresh air in 2015 - if he could get a hand free he was offloading. It just makes the rest seem even more depressing.

Cuthbertson was worth the admission price alone in 2015, some of the offloads he produced were quite frankly outlandish and he could put his head down and bend the line when required. Also every time an arm snaked free my mum would scream "DON'T YOU F*****G DARE!".

Have you seen this..? Pitch will be 91 meters long on Sunday due to safety issues. Did they not identify this sooner and / or consider doing it somewhere safe to fit in the right sized pitch..? m.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-league/38002428

Have you seen this..? Pitch will be 91 meters long on Sunday due to safety issues. Did they not identify this sooner and / or consider doing it somewhere safe to fit in the right sized pitch..? m.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-league/38002428

Agree with you and others about the boring, attritional nature of many games, the first halves in particular have become an exercise in simply trying to drain opposition energy and often tries are only scored from kicks. Not sure what can be done as players are now so much fitter and defences vastly better.

In my more random moments I wonder if we should try going back to 4 tackles to try and encourage teams to play more, whatever, I think the game needs something to create more passing and movement. 5 one man drives and a big kick ain't really worth watching.

I think we really need to look at fairly big changes to the rules. RL desperately tried to speed the game up and I think it's gone too far. To the point where there's too much of the same thing over and over again.

I am not one of the "bah eck lad t'were better in mah day" brigade so it concerns me when I find myself getting bored watching most games recently, including internationals and State of Origin. And I think it's not all due to a reduction in quality. I think it's a confluence of a few things including a focus on stats and athleticism but also the steady evolution of the game toward a more one-dimensional play.

There is basically only one area of competition now, the play the ball. And I think that's to the detriment of the sport for both having competitive games and for entertainment value.

I'd like to see us bring back other areas of competition or make it easier for teams to compete and play in a different way. Such as the reintroduction of scrums. I think this would enable a "lesser" team such as Scotland in the 4 Nations to give it a go more as imagine a situation where Danny Brough could kick the ball downfield into touch and then a big Scottish pack could try and win the ball back deep in the oppositions half.
Along with other changes such as calling held quicker, holding the defence back for longer before they can move up, having the team that scored kick off (or maybe start with a tap on halfway?), and I'm sure there are other possibilities to open the game up a bit.

Should we maybe go even more radical and have a bit of an NFL style thing of where you get 6 almost guaranteed plays? So if you drop the ball you keep possession but play goes back to the previous play the ball.
You would only lose possession if the other team gets possession of a loose ball or if you kick the ball away?

Only a few thoughts on how to open the game up, as it's been steadily becoming a more and more closed, tight and conservative game.

If we just stuck to the rules, consistently applied them and punished rule bending at source then we'd have a better game instantly.

Tend to agree with this, but also think the biggest issue that has impacted quality from a rules/process aspect is the referees 'coaching' during the game and particularly the use of a 'dominant' call which allows a slower PTB.
I think allowing a slower play the ball for a 'dominant' tackle is the main reason we have such a focus on the wrestle, quick PTB's and winning the ruck. If every tackle was allowed the same amount of time and the defenders were made to clear the ruck immediately (as per the actual rules), we'd see less focus on finding your front in attack (and therefore maybe more expansive play), and less focus on the wrestle in defence. I think that would then have a huge impact on how teams play for territory etc - because as things stand, once you lose the ruck, you lose all momentum and you get blown away. If every tackle is roughly the same speed, teams won't need to worry about losing that momentum as they're gonna get a fair crack at it next time they have the ball.

I'd like to see Refs calling held quicker and to counteract that for the defence, not allow the defending side to move off the line before the ball is in the dummy half's hand.
I would also revert to players having to play the ball with the foot.

Did they ever confirm whether or not they'll be a reduction in the number of interchanges this year? Wasn't the hope that it would stop so many of these 3/4 man tackles?

The more hidden problem with this is that it doesn't encourage the kids to look deeper into their performances. If the team loses it's easy for someone to say "Well I had decent metres so it can't be anything I did" ignoring the fact that a lot of those metres were off kick returns and the other team dealt with the carries easily enough. We're teaching kids that the overall team performance doesn't matter because they posted some big numbers on a spreadsheet. How are they going to learn the importance of offering a genuine passing option for the ball carrier or how to draw a man before releasing the ball when things like that aren't recorded or praised but sticking your head down and trundling it up is?

This attitude also feeds into the "Give it to the big lad" mentality. He's posting the best stats so we should give him the ball more so he gets more carries so posts the best stats so we should give him the ball more and so on and so on.

If you introduced real scrums the game would just become a kick-a-thon - I would like to see those in the scrum not able to engage in the first play after the ball is put in the scrum. That way you have 7 v 7 in open play. Also if you have a man sin-binned you have to put 6 in the scrum and that gives the offending side a disadvantage.

We've done everything we can since I started watching league to weight things in favour of the attacking side. Changed from 5 metres to 10 metres, speeded up the mechanics of PTB (no foot required to play the ball and penalize heavily at the ruck for things like hands in or not rolling away etc.), stopped ball stripping unless 1:1 to encourage offloading attempts, introduced the 40:20 to promote attacking kicks, increased the points for a try from 3 to 4. Then there is the scrum, which is now a total formality and we also forced the loose forward to pack down so he couldn't stand off and defend. Then there's video which and a change in disciplinary proceeding which has eliminated the late high hit or the lazy arm taking someone's head off if they put a step on you. Then there are the shirts themselves, ever watched an old game from the 80's with those big flapping easy to grab shirts?

Really worked hasn't it.

I agree there's a risk of that but it might also mean then that defences drop their wingers back more often and so open a bit of space up in the field.

Is it just me who, when I see a Union game on tv, thinks that the pitch looks bigger? Despite there being 4 more men on there? Admittedly I don't see much Union but when I do it's rare that I think there aren't any gaps to be exploited. Whereas with League I often think the defences are so well organised I don't know where the break is going to come from.

A lot of fair points have been made and most agree that the game is not in good shape and is in urgent need of improvement. Action is required at all levels of the game in order to restore the game to its former glory. However we are in a classic catch 22 situation. The game is chronically short of investment but because it has lost much of its appeal it is unlikely we will get the funds needed which in turn means we are unable to fund the improvements needed to improve the product etc etc.

At grass roots level the coaching is not good enough and funds are needed for better facilities and coaching . Rugby Union is light years ahead in mini and junior development and is a model League should emulate.

At Super League level the game is starved of genuine class. We have not been producing quality half backs and centres for quite some time now which IMO is due to a sequence of factors. Firstly the multi interchange has led to an over reliance of size over skill. The bench is packed with physically over developed forwards used as battering rams in short spells. This has meant centres now have to be more like 2nd rowers to put in higher tackle counts as they are not interchanged. This in turn has led to the traditional lighter weight, better balanced, faster and more skillful centres and half backs being squeezed out.

Secondly there is a lack of backs with real pace with hand and foot skills. This in part is down to my first point about size over skill, but it is also due to the accent on defence that now rules the game. Coaches will not risk the lighter weight players who used to open up defences regularly and bring crowds to their feet because they may miss the odd tackle. The policy of bulking up players with speed, flair and balance ends up with blunting their rare attacking edge. I think Watkins falls in to this group.

IMO the main attraction in watching rugby is seeing wonderful handling moves with attackers beating defenders using body swerve, side step, dummy and angle of run into a gap created by well timed passes. Currently our game sadly lacks these skills which now are more likely to be found in Union. Until we bring back this sort of fast attacking rugby our game will never regain its place as a leader of sporting entertainment.

Although Cuthbertson last year gave us glimpses of the ball playing prop of yesteryear they too are a dying breed as is the ball playing loose forward. It was this typically British style of play that could beat Australia and it is the loss of this style of play that leads to the very disappointing results in this years 4 nations internationals.

So without an attractive entertainment product we will fail to attract the sponsorship money we need and we risk losing the TV audience to Union and therefore the TV income could decline too. So as I say we are in a catch 22 position.

What we could do without cost is to reduce the number of interchanges and limit the number of forwards on the bench which should bring opportunities for quick backs to attack tiring defences. Again without cost we just have to speed up the PTB and cut out the wrestle and keep the scrum packed down until the first PTB with only forwards in the scrum. This should allow half backs opportunities to develop their attacking skills.

Until we improve the skills of our players we are unlikely to win anything on the international scene.

Indeed, and out of all those rule changes above, the 10 metre rule caused the most damage to the game and did more to encourage monotonous 5 drives (including tedious dummy half scoots in often guaranteed open space) followed by the obligatory kick (anywhere will do in most cases). The requirement for developing crafty halfbacks armed with skill-sets and an ability to produce unpredictable plays was removed right there.

Wasn't it Bradford who first wore the shirts where players required help squeezing into them?

At last the game requires a true scrum half after a quarter of a century..My God things are looking up..

It''s also the cause of all this wrestling crap at the tackle. Tactics to help the defence get back and set.

Oh you mean you can't touch a player once grounded (surrender,away) has been called?

Translation: Moooooooooooooovvvvvvvveeeeeee!

Forgot the Moooooooooooooovvvvvvvveeeeeee!..Word.

No that was me when I thought that the Rhinos size 2XL meant that.

No you need to keep the 10 meter rule but reduce the interchanges.
Firstly it would mean that defensive can be up so quickly and the halfbacks would get more time on the ball.
Secondly it would pull defenders inside to compensate for tiring forwards, leaving space outside and encouraging expansive play.

If the 'dominant' or 'surrendered' calls were abolished, and we just reffed the PTB consistently as per the actual rules, there would naturally be more space, as teams wouldn't have time to get back, set and moving back up at pace, and would naturally tire quicker.
A reduction of interchanges would enhance this further. I wouldn't be against going back to non-rolling subs, meaning once you've gone off, you're off for good.