As long as it's consistenty a penelty, I've no problem. Then it's down to the players to adapt.

Players have learnt to step over the player on the floor and play the ball into them.

Needs addressing somehow

Also players aren’t getting to their feet before putting the ball down, they are leaving the ball on the ground.

An obvious starting point would be to penalise players who step over a prone tackler for moving off the mark.

Did you see, I think it was Ben Westwood kneeling on a defending Leuluai's neck in the ruck to gain a penalty at pob.
Tbf, a Wire Wigan game was always going to produce a lot of garbage at pob both in attack and defense, you're right its driving me up the wall and spoiling what should have been an entertaining game.
I switched it off way before halftime, and not for the first time this season.

Yep.

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If the rules above were enforced it would clear up the issue.

Yep. It's so simple I jsyt cant understand why it hasn't been introduced this season. The whole shambles of the play the ball is definitely affecting my enjoyment of the game.very frustrating to see your team penalised for something they couldn't help when a player steps over them and plays the ball into them before they have chance to even try and clear the ruck.

Leuluai did it last night . The RFL need to address the issue .Simply penalise the offender by means of a sin binning .

Mitch Garbutt is the only player in Super League who plays the ball correctly. Our rucks and PTBs are a mess

I think the refs should use more discretion
If the defender is attempting to clear the ruck area it's no penalty, if he is making no attempt then penalise him.
Similarly if the acting half back deliberately hits the defender with the ball it's no penalty.
In yesterday's HKR v Catalan game, Tompkins deliberately passed the ball so it hit a retreating HKR player, it wasn't accidental, it was so blatant it was almost a forward pass.

Minichello tackled a Wakefield player on Friday, and was trying to get up. Danny Brough was moving into dummy half and was nudging Minichiello with his knee and keeping him on the floor, and in the way and Brough gets the penalty.

2 cases of point.

1. Saints Dominic Peyroux is tackled with tackler underneath him during tackling motion but rolls off, Peyroux then deliberately climbs back on top of the tackler *as if he wants to dry hump him* & holds the tackler down while getting up & stepping over him to the play the ball guess where ? Got it straight at the tackler he pinned down for some brotherly love !!! Result, penalty to Saints, WTF ?

2. Melbourne v Brisbane, tackled player steps over prone tackler & plays the ball straight at him, result, play on !

The rules as written are fine just apply them all, if atackled player gets up quickly plays the ball correctly then penalise any player who deliberately gets involved if they try to get out of the way & are not involved play on. Interestingly the rules say place or drop the ball & play it backwards? Tey dropping it now & not give away a scrum for a knock on. Surely the RFLmust know that the play the ball is a mess that infuriates most spectators? I would love to go back to a time when trying to win a penalty was considered cheating & beyond contempt.

This is pretty much the answer to most niggles with RL - the problem we have is that officials seem to be adapting and evolving the rules on the fly - in pursuit of a faster and faster game - and that leaves coaches and players with the leeway to also adapt and evolve how they'll exploit them.

This relatively new and easily exploitable purge on tacklers in the ruck is just the latest example - of the matches I saw at the weekend, I'd say that more than half the penalties awarded for that offence were unnecessary and involved some form of cheating by the attacking player; it's not a good look for the game.

Tackler didn't roll off quick enough, Peyroux always goes for a quick PTB and he knew the tackler couldn't roll away to the side because Peyroux's legs were in the way, a 50-50 decision in our favour because Peyroux did not hold the player down.

So that is gamesmanship as Peyroux knowingly prevented a player rolling out the way by standing over him and unfortunately gameship has really crept in to RL recently and unless the RFL and the referees get a grip it will just mean the sport descending in to farce.

If a player makes a tackle and ends up in a position where they can not roll away due to the attacking player stood with a leg either side and the ball is deliberatley played into the prone defender then it should be play on or a penalty to the defending team for deliberately playing for a penalty.

In the Hull V Wakefield game Brough knew exactly what he was doing and deliberately stood over Minichello (to trap him) as he was in the process of rolling away from the tackled player, who then stood up and played the ball and Brough then let it hit Minichello and waved his arms for the penalty and was rewarded for his gamesmanship which is pretty much cheating for a penalty.

Another poor decision in the same game was Taylor being penalised for having a Wakefield player who he had tackled laid on top of him writhing around to gain a penalty when all he had to do was stand up as Taylor was clearly no holding him down but was unable to clear the area as the Wakefield player was laid on top making no attempt to get up. Similarly Jacob Miller running directly at a static Hull defender and throwing himself dramatically to the floor to yet again gain a penalty by conning the ref.

These are the areas refs need to seriously clean up otherwise the game will be ruined.

If an opposing player stands over a player that made a tackle then the ref should either let play go on or penalise the attacking player for simulation same as in football for diving.

The ptb is a horror show at present. Defenders lying on, players flopping onto tackled players (why isn't that penalised anymore?). Attackers moving off the mark, trapping defenders with their arms. Ball stealing v loose carries. Its a bit like RU scrums in the sense that who gets penalised is a lottery.

What you see sometimes with refs is that they judged who dominated the tackle impact and give the advantage to the dominator, what you saw with Peyroux was aggression to play the ball on his terms and hence won the benefit of the doubt.

Its when you see a slow ruck maul and the player gets dominated but moves way forward off the mark, sometimes you see a player stepping laterally to the side to play the ball into a player who has rolled to the side, those 2 incidents are definitely penalties to the defending side.

Another problem is the ref turns his head away from the PTB to set the 10 metres that could be only 2 seconds but when looks again to the PTB he sees a different scenario and makes a calculated decision, we really need 2 referees one to police the PTB and one to set the defensive line.

Flops stopped getting penalised a few years back, certainly something i noticed. not sure why. It's just not penalised unless its 10 minutes late. Every single player moves off the mark now. To me, if you step over a player, you're moving off the mark, and thats a penalty, but what do i know.

My mistake - it seems that only Wakefield are guilty of this offence - and only when they beat Hull...

are you seriously saying Wakey didn't cheat?

The better team won, 2 points, they wont be extending the trop... hang on,Wakey haven't won anything in 30 years.

Clearly not.

Whats your issue? Its got nothing to do with only Wakefield doing only when they Hull but they were 3 glaring incidents in that game whether Hull won or lost is not the reason for me pointing these out. Same as I openly criticised Danny Houghton last season when he intentionally threw a pass knowing it would hit the opponent to get a penalty. Same way if I see a Hull player do the same I would be critical because its becoming an issue in the game and needs eradicating.

For your information Hull were beaten by Wakefield as they were the better of the two on the night if that makes you feel better.

The fact is its becoming an issue and I didnt mention that I never thought I'd see the day RL players asking a ref to give an opponent a yellow card like Fafita & co did it thats game but hey my mistake we got beat so can't have an opinion obviously.

Save your breath Chris. You should know by now that they're always the victims.

Trouble is you don't say anything about Houghton from the Wakey game, or in fact anyone from the Hull side.
I absolutely agree with you, the ruck and pob is garbage atm, I'm turning half the sky games off before half time this season its that 5h1te.
I don't think the Wakey/Hull game was particularly bad in that respect, I mean neither side where angels but, hell, have a watch of any Wigan/Wire/Catalans game, because I can't, its abysmal.
Hull did their bit as do all teams, both Hull and Wakey are no worse than anybody else, and quite a bit better than some, mebbe that's why they're 3 from 6.