The game is already the greatest sport in the world. No need to change anything. Except touch judges with enough courage to shout for a forward pass when there is one. I've seen some shockers this year.

So what do you do when someone knocks on, or steals the ball, or lies on too long?

That's not a bad call.



Agree about the forward passes. Gives the ref one less thing to do in an already difficult job. I think we have the greatest game because we have learnt to adapt, bring in new rules, improvements and technology.

The ball is picked up by the tackled player and he plays it - putting the ball back in play. If someone lies on too long, it's a penalty.

Seems like a good suggestion to me. Often it's a 50/50 call by the ref as to whether it's a steal or a knock-on and a penalty is a big punishment.

I agree totally. Seems a decent way to tidy up the play the ball and reduce the amount of penalties, it would stop players leaving hands in the tackle.

We could have the video ref award points based on style and technical difficulty.

I could live with that

I would look at the "kicking try" and the "passing try". For instance any try scored as a result of a kick within the defending sides 25 metres given 3 points for a try. Any other try by passing or long range kick given the usual 4 points.

Last season we were getting a lot of trys scored from speculative kicks and less from skilful passing movements. Even this season teams who can,t break through the defensive line, resort to "stab kicks" from 5 to 10 metres through gaps and wait for a lucky bounce.

Or maybe, what someone else has suggested a "kick try" dos,nt get awarded with a conversion.

A ball kicked out on the full should only be a tap restart from where the ball was kicked and not a penalty.

1. Players able to play for any country that they hold citizenship/passport for, without needing cooling off periods to switch or hear the moans of people who don't understand dual citizenship complaining about other people being multi-national. Get rid of residency and Grandparent rule.
2. Get rid of touch judges and replace them with two assistant refs. As refs they will have more duties and more onus on them to call fouls/offsides/forward passes. 1st assistant ref takes over refing the game if the ref gets injured, so for big games (like the CC or Grand Final) you would expect the top 4 refs to be involved, with the 5th in line as reserve.
3. "Fumble" (that hits the ground/other player) to replace "knock on". Players allowed to juggle ball/bounce it off their own feet/etc without it counting as a fumble.
4. Older players get more points for scoring trys, as they are older and can't run as well. Possibly trys scored on a bell curve with youngsters who are not really old enough to be playing also getting extra points. Australians only get a maximum of 2 points for scoring a try.

If anyone remembers the Daryl Goulding no try on Friday, that rule is definatly wrong. To allow a defender to prevent a certain try by punching out the ball only to concede a penalty is nonesense imo.

I agree with the poster who said once you have played for one nation you cannot play for another.

I don't agree with the crossing penalty either. What's wrong with a dummy runner going through as long as he doesn't make contact and actually obstruct someone who has a chance of making the tackle.

I think the OP sounds like something Phil Clarke would gab on about.

For me;
Get rid of corner flags
Two refs on pitch
Get rid of all that 'MOVE' 'SURRENDER' 'GLADIATORS... READY?' business

Reduced points or no conversion attempt for a try resulting from a kick is a very interesting idea. But, If you say that I would say you have to consider scooting from dummy half from a metre out; not always the most skillful score either.

I agree with Jonny about internationals. You pick a nation, stick with it and you wear their flag on your jersey.

WOuld also say clubs who win CC, SL, Minor Premiers, WCC can put an emblem on their jersey for the season after.

And the video refereeing panel say:

5.9. 5.9. 6.0. 6.0 5.1

"5.1 from the Wigan ref there as it's Saints."



Brilliant!

2 ref system not working in NRL. Why employ it here?

How about time being off from the moment a try is scored right up to the kick restart to prevent time wasting by the try scoring team / slow restart.

What's so awful about kicked trys? Watching Wigan this season I've been privileged to have seen many great passing trys and kicked trys. If you are going to disencentivise any try make it the barge over try or as I like to call it the fat lads flop over try.

all headhigh challenges, delaying the PTB, late Challenges on the kicker, Spear tackles, punished by a penalty and 5 mins in the sin bin for the offender, they would be gone out of our game within a month

move out the corner flags, its a pointless anomoly that you only need to touch the flag and not the ground to be in touch.

Speed up the PTB to movement immediately on completeion of the tackle, but allow to markers to stand side by side to stop the scoot.

1. When an attacking team kicks the ball over the dead ball line from beyond 30 yards out, the defending team should start their set from where the ball was kicked.

2. When the VR is in use, the referee should be allowed to use it to determine how a ball has come loose, instead of using pure guesswork (a long-standing bugbear of mine).

3. Get rid of 'On Report'. It's either foul play or it isn't, sin-binning or sending off.

They should let biffs build and fizzle out naturally like they do in ice hockey.

Who on earth wants to get rid of Surrender?????? It isnt used enough.
Rugby League must be the only game where the attacker wants to be on the floor and the 'tackler' is trying to prevent them from finding the floor.
Its all gotten a bit ridiculous.

one other thing i would look at is when a player is running the ball out of the in-goal area. I understand the reasons for allowing them to dive for the line, but you get players 2/3 metres further forward diving to the ground and just laying there.

Instead of a voluntary tackle, I would look at it counting twice. So you can chose to give up the tackle but you lose another for it, or you can contest the contact, risk being pushed back in the in goal area but save a tackle

Often the defender is diving for the line at the same time as defenders are diving for him, both trying to achieve opposing aims. I think that's fair enough.

But if as sometimes happens a player just dives down to the ground past the line, a la Joynt, then the attacking team surely just need to wait until he regains his feet (as he is obliged to do) and then have an easy job of pushing him back over the line because he has lost all momentum?

Then, if he just lies there instead, eventually the ref has no choice but to award the voluntary tackle, however reluctantly.

I agree they should, but arent and it seems a little harsh to give a penalty pretty much on the goal line for the same action which in a lot of cases wont result in any punishment. Its a bit harsh on the person getting over the line that whether or not they give away a penalty is dependant on how quickly the defenders lay a finger on him especially consdering they will need to brace themselves for the impact of someone diving on them.

I think a smaller punishementt (one tackle or even some other punishment larger than a surrender tackle but larger smaller than a penalty) for all cases where the player doesnt contest the collision would encourage refs to actually use it as a punishment.

Does anyone know the last time a voluntary tackle was actually given?

Don't agree with any of that, some of the most skilful tries originate from kicks, and the arts of attacking with and defending kicks are a rich part of the game. Why would you think that only passing merits top points? Many "passing" tries are just straightforward mistakes in the defensive line, or running out of numbers. Many are of far less technical merit that some of the subtle kicks or grubbers that some players can achieve.

Can't remember the games but there were at least 2 this season, but both for players playing the ball when they should have been playing on.

Leastways, they were described as VTs, though I can't agree that it is within the wording of the rule. The explanation was that a player can't create his own tackle, and play the ball, as this "catches out" the defence, who have to retire the 10 etc. I can understand that, but can't see anything in the rules to prevent a player playing the ball back to a colleague as ina PTB but in general play. Obviously it would mean that the defence could go for the ball, try to tackle him, not retire etc. It would be confusing, but would it be illegal?

Never seen one that I can recall for a player just lying there, waiting.

The rule is in two parts. The first part states:

Without resurrecting JVT, the consensus was that when the Bradford player touched Joynt, that completed the tackle. Whereas in hindsight and while that may be factually correct, the penalty should already have been awarded as Joynt had voluntarily (a) deliberately and (b) unnecessarily (c) fallen to the ground all of which was (d) done quite purposefully to (e) allow himself to be tackled and run time out while minimizing any risk of losing the ball in contact.

So what of a defender running out of in-goal and diving down once past the line? The last time we had this argument the consensus was that the interpretation was over the word "unnecessarily". I don't think Joynt could have argued it was necessary to run out the clock, but I can see why the defender can reasonably argue it was necessary to avoid being tackled in goal, which is quite a different thing. But, and in common with the Joynt incident, the attackers don't [ihave[/i to complete the tackle, and the player must commit an offence if he doesn't then regain his feet and play on.

Although the last point (due to a typical example of poor rule wording) is contentious, as if nobody touches the prone player - how can you say that he "allows himself to be tackled"? Probably - you can't!

And you could argue that the wording is accidental, and imply the additional words "...or places himself in a position just waiting to be tackled", on the basis that the rule writers mustn't have had prone players in mind - except you can't, because they did! In the second part of the voluntary tackle rule it says:

.

So you would have to conclude from that (IMHO) that the rule writes DID have prone players in mind, and the only prohibition to prostrating yourself is staying prone after diving on a loose ball. Which is odd, but there you go.

ive had that in mind for a while, kinda taken from rugby union. id do it from a kick in your own half though. Its time bad kicks or negative kicks were punished