Quote ="Beverley red"You mean apply the rule that still stands? We would then find out how good Roby or the rest of the number 9s are. I am all for competative scrums as long as we don't get back to the farce it had become, or the endless bore fest that the other codes scrums are. An even contest makes 40/20 kicks into touch a riskier option but also stops in touch as a safe option to wind down the clock.'"
I agree, I don't want it like the Union lot either but I think it could add a dimension to the game that would help. I also don't think it would end up like Union because all the other demands of RL still apply and mean you simply can't get away with the 20 stone monsters that are used as props in Union.
I also think that, as a sport, we can come up with rules and apply them so that it's no messier than it has to be.
Maybe for 40-20's we could give the kicking team a tap restart rather than a scrum so that the benefit of a 40-20 still applies?
You don't even have to have modern hookers in the hooking position in the scrum if you don't want. They obviously have a huge role in modern RL as being the acting half so if clubs didn't want to burden their acting halves with having hooking duties too I'm sure they could adapt a second rower (or whoever they wanted) to that role.
My main reason for thinking this would be a good thing is that I think we have a problem with our game in terms of keeping teams in a game. The nature of RL is unique (I think) in sport in that a team can be dominated more easily than in other sports and it can be incredibly difficult to overturn that dominance. That dominance then often leads to big score lines. RL also has relatively few "battlegrounds" as I call them. We have some like an offloading game for instance but obviously the main area by a distance is the play the ball. If you lose that battle you're probably going to lose the game. And if you can't really compete in that area you'll lose by 40 odd points. Whereas Union for instances has several areas to compete in. Of course the ruck/maul is important in Union but if you're not particularly strong in one area in Union you can focus on another such as scrums or lineouts.
So basically I think it would hugely benefit the game (especially the international game) if we introduced another area where a team could compete. France, for instance, could then maybe focus on a big pack that could win some scrums against the head combined with a good kick to touch game to get them out of trouble when playing England who will probably be faster at and control the play the ball.
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