Punish a dropped ball in rugby league
Roar Pro By Dean - Surry Hills, 9 Jun 2012 Dean - Surry Hills is a Roar Pro
- Tagged:
- NRL, nrl referees, Rugby League
A growing proportion of rugby league fans’ discontent arrives on a weekly basis in the form of contentious decisions by referees.
“The ref cost us the match” is a catch cry you generally hear from bitter fans, especially when games have gone down to the wire.
The knock-on rule, which is one of the most controversial every week, often requires the referee to make a call when he cannot see the incident in the first place.
For as long as I can remember, I’ve heard fans say: “He knocked that ball on, it didn’t go backwards. Are you blind? A few tackles later you guys scored a try. How much did you pay the ref?”
Could the game afford to lose some of its complexity and conjecture, while helping newcomers to the game more easily develop a better understanding of its laws?
A new rule that allowed for a change over for any dropped ball regardless of whether it is backwards, forwards, or sideways would considerably simplify the game.
A motion that constitutes as a pass would have to be excluded – situations such as a player picking up a ball cleanly after it has bounced after it was passed, or tapping a ball on to a team mate in a sweeping backline movement.
A ball coming into contact with the ground after being tapped back from a kick however, would constitute as a dropped ball under the new rule. This is currently one of my pet hates. A high kick that goes up holds no real reward for the defensive team when taken cleanly – unless the ball is caught in goal.
The offensive team on the other hand can often extend a single arm above their opponent’s attempted catch, to knock the ball backwards and then hope for a result from the ensuing lottery. I see no real skill in this action, and teams continually go to the air for a result when the defensive line proves difficult to breach. It’s messy, time consuming, and often leaves fans bewildered.
Personally I’d rather see a low scoring game, than a match with an inflated score line through iffy tries.
At the end of the day, I believe that a mistake is a mistake. Whether you drop the ball backwards, forwards, or sideways it should constitute as an error. That old cricket analogy could then apply to rugby league as well: Catches win matches.
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- Explore:
- NRL, nrl referees, Rugby League
June 9th 2012 @ 2:43am
Shooshy said | June 9th 2012 @ 2:43am | Report comment
There’s another game where if you drop the ball it’s a handover regardless of it goes forwards or backwards it’s called touch football. Stupid idea that rule would never be introduced into rugby league end of story
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June 9th 2012 @ 4:38pm
Dean - Surry Hills said | June 9th 2012 @ 4:38pm | Report comment
There’s another game called Rugby Union that has knock-ons.
What’s your point Shooshy ?
June 9th 2012 @ 10:27am
sledgeandhammer said | June 9th 2012 @ 10:27am | Report comment
I think this is pretty much the way dropped balls are called in the NRL anyway?
June 9th 2012 @ 4:37pm
Dean - Surry Hills said | June 9th 2012 @ 4:37pm | Report comment
Ummmm. No
June 9th 2012 @ 3:35pm
Ian Whitchurch said | June 9th 2012 @ 3:35pm | Report comment
“A high kick that goes up holds no real reward for the defensive team when taken cleanly – unless the ball is caught in goal. ”
How about this reward – the defence has clean possession of the footy, and when you have clean possession, the other side cant score.
June 9th 2012 @ 4:36pm
Dean - Surry Hills said | June 9th 2012 @ 4:36pm | Report comment
Ian – In some instances the man who catches the ball gets hammered within milliseconds by an opponent traveling at 30km an hour and weighing around 100 kilos. He has no chance to evade the hit, and is basically a sitting duck for punishment.
In other instances a fullback or winger takes a great catch a few metres out from their line and is smashed before they can react and is then driven backwards by a Sam Thaiday type who has never challenged for the ball to begin with. The result is a line drop-out for showcasing your skills. There’s clean possession with punishment in both scenarios.
June 9th 2012 @ 4:46pm
Ian Whitchurch said | June 9th 2012 @ 4:46pm | Report comment
Dean,
Nope. Both cases are a reward for a perfectly weighted kick, becuase if it wasnt, the ball wouldnt force the defender to play at it, as opposed to letting it go out of play, or the ball would arrive too early or too late for the chaser to corral the catcher correctly.
June 10th 2012 @ 11:49am
Dean - Surry Hills said | June 10th 2012 @ 11:49am | Report comment
There’s a lot to be said about the so-called perfectly weighted kick.
Currently it’s an area of 10 metres shy of the tryline – to 5 metres inside of it.
That’s a target area of about 15 metres, and one that most 16 year old boys would hit.
June 9th 2012 @ 4:38pm
Mella said | June 9th 2012 @ 4:38pm | Report comment
Potentially good idea and would reduce the attractiveness of putting up bombs on the last play as you say, but, would also further reduce ball movement by the attacking team which is rugby leagues biggest problem. Teams need to be encouraged to move the ball at every point on the field, not only when they get in the attacking 20 meter zone. Of the top of my head to get rid of the boring as hell tries from bombs you could get rid of aerial kicks in the attacking 20m zone or even 40m (only grubber kicks allowed, or not over 5 meters high), or no kicking on the last tackle, or if a defender takes a mark in league you could penalize the attacking team from where the kick was taken. There’s all sorts of options.
June 9th 2012 @ 4:42pm
Mella said | June 9th 2012 @ 4:42pm | Report comment
actually the simplest rule would be tries from kicks are only worth 2 points.
June 9th 2012 @ 4:48pm
Ian Whitchurch said | June 9th 2012 @ 4:48pm | Report comment
Mella,
Too big a change for my liking – if you are going to do that, I’d rather remove the kick for goal after if your try came from a kick.
June 9th 2012 @ 7:03pm
Mella said | June 9th 2012 @ 7:03pm | Report comment
when nearly 50% of tries come from kicks and teams base their entire game plan on low risk football to get into the attacking zone and put up a kick, its time to make a slightly radical change in my view.
June 10th 2012 @ 11:55am
Dean - Surry Hills said | June 10th 2012 @ 11:55am | Report comment
In a previous article, I suggested removing the kick at goal if a try was scored from a kick, and I copped a hammering from Roarers for such profanity !
My personal opinion is that most footballers could perfect a high kick with less than one months training and practice.
June 10th 2012 @ 4:50pm
Mella said | June 10th 2012 @ 4:50pm | Report comment
yeah but they were probably all hardcore NRL fans who cant see the forest through the trees. Its like talking to rugby fans who think any attempt at reducing penalty kicks is sacrilegious.
June 9th 2012 @ 5:19pm
Mike said | June 9th 2012 @ 5:19pm | Report comment
Great article. I agree that a dropped ball in any direction is a mistake. It is what makes the Rugby codes different to AFL that has basically turned into a mistakeathon punctuated by occasional sightings of fluid play. A changeover for any dropped ball would take a referees interpretation out of play but I wonder if it would make the game too stop start. Maybe they should trial it in the lower grades or pre season and see what eventuates.
Re trys scored from kicks: That should be pretty simple, make them worth 2 points only. The aim of Rugby League, at its core, is to run the ball and score trys. As such it makes sense to give the greatest reward to a try that is run in from open play.
June 10th 2012 @ 12:01pm
Dean - Surry Hills said | June 10th 2012 @ 12:01pm | Report comment
I’m with you Mike on the worth of a try from a kick.
I think the changeover rule/ or current zero tackle law for any dropped ball would actually increase the speed of play, especially considering that there would be no scrum to pack when a team regathers after spilling the pill – like the current knock-on rule.
June 9th 2012 @ 11:32pm
npollard said | June 9th 2012 @ 11:32pm | Report comment
I agree that there is an issue with the predictability of work down to the 20m line and bomb to the edge tactics.I am thinking aloud here and havn’t thought it right through but it might be worth exploring the possibility of extending the rule of allowing defensive players who takes the ball on the full in their in-goal out to the 10m line or maybe respect someone who fields a kick in the field of play and is pushed back in goal can have the right to go and play it where he caught it. This means that the kick is not as attractive an option. Thoughts everyone?
June 9th 2012 @ 11:51pm
Ian Whitchurch said | June 9th 2012 @ 11:51pm | Report comment
Npollard,
Rugby league’s two cousins deal with this differently.
In American Football, you can signal a Fair Catch before you go to catch the ball – if you do, the other side can’t mug you as you go to catch the ball, but on the other hand, you cant keep running forward after you’ve caught it, either.
In Australian Rules, the umpires will generally let you catch it and take a step or two, and then go back and play the ball where you caught it. More than that, they rule that you declined the mark, and its play on.
The offensive kick in rugby league is it’s forward pass. I’d be interested to see what percentagen of tries came off kicks inj the NRL over time.
June 10th 2012 @ 12:04pm
Dean - Surry Hills said | June 10th 2012 @ 12:04pm | Report comment
I like your train of thought Mike – maybe extend it all the way to the 20 metre line. A rule like this would make the last tackle options more random. You’d see a lot more running of the ball on the last, and players desperate to keep it alive. Reminds me of teams who have to score after the siren has gone !
June 10th 2012 @ 4:34pm
npollard said | June 10th 2012 @ 4:34pm | Report comment
It would be a worth while exercise to get some hard stats on kick tries. It certainly feels like they are still increasing, take Origin in Melbourne for example, of the 5 tries, 3 were kick lottery tries and QLD ran in 2 tries. My worry with changing the rule to dropped ball instead of knock-on/back is that you might see less passing overall as a result which is the opposite of what people want to see.
My biggest dislike at the moment is the disconnect between the referees and the rule book. I made this point with this article: http://www.theroar.com.au/2012/06/02/nrl-fails-keep-pace-technology/
For some reason the game is allowed to evolve too much through ‘refs interpretation’. At the moment you see players loose the ball when they should be responsible for holding it and instead they get a penalty because a tacklers hand hits the ball but the referees will blow the whistle for what often could be play-on for a knock-back. I am very familiar with the rule book and its not applied by NRL referees in many parts of the game – not just scrums.
June 10th 2012 @ 6:28pm
Dean - Surry Hills said | June 10th 2012 @ 6:28pm | Report comment
My apologies for referring to you as “Mike” in my post above.
All too true regarding referees and their individual interpretations at present.
I just finished watching the Broncs and Roosters game – and there were quite a few shockers from the boys in pink.
Two refs yelling out different statements as to whom had possession of the ball, and a player who was clearly on the ground with his opponent making contact, and then being allowed to get up and run was the highlight of all things dodgy.
Is it getting worse – or is it just my over active imagination?
June 10th 2012 @ 6:59pm
Meesta Cool said | June 10th 2012 @ 6:59pm | Report comment
For the last two weeks, I have been showing empathy to the Refs, todays display was unforgiveable in anyone’s eyes, we need to get back to one ref..
June 10th 2012 @ 7:27pm
npollard said | June 10th 2012 @ 7:27pm | Report comment
We do get to see all their mistakes, often many times over in slow mo, so they might be no worse but our scrutiny is greater. having said that and as I stated in my article, I think the referees are let down by the processes above them.
They are probably a bit disfunctional as an organisation. It should be such that when a rule change is drafted that the referees are asked as to how it will be implemented in the game and when referees are having problems they should be able to feed back that there is too much room for interpretation and there needs to be guidelines so they can guess less. I am talking mainly about the difficulty of ruling on lost ball in the tackle.
How is it that there is more lost ball in the tackle now than there was when you were allowed to steal it! Logic says that the ball carrier is not protecting it enough. When a tacklers hand lands against the ball most often that gets a penalty. I want them to get more exact guidelines around what is ball stealing. The refs need help!
June 10th 2012 @ 9:56am
Blaze said | June 10th 2012 @ 9:56am | Report comment
I think it’s fine the way it is, the refs just need to be able to use the video ref (yes I know….) in the time taken to pack the scrum to make sure whether it was actually stripped or just dropped.. 95% that we see on tv is pretty clear cut… There is always going to be that 5% that is left to the refs discression… I’m happy with that. The two point try from kicks is silly. If you perfectly place a kick on the fifth tackle because the opposition come up with no fullback staying back and you score, why should you be penalised for a defensive mistake that you have capitalised on? The game is great the way it is…. Better than anything else by far in this country… Let’s not wreck it because a couple of refs make a few bad decisions… It’s been happening since the beginning… Gives the media something to write about the next day and us something to bitch about for the week. It’s great!
June 10th 2012 @ 12:18pm
Dean - Surry Hills said | June 10th 2012 @ 12:18pm | Report comment
Blaze – its all good in theory – but unfortunately the video ref is only there for the top flight games, and not for the myriad of competitions throughout the rest of the country and OS. A rule that treats all dropped balls the same would take away any guesswork from a referee who is often not in the best position to adjudicate.
There would be around 3 to 4 decisions in most games that are contentious as to whether the ball went forward or backwards.
I have no beef with kicks on the last tackle – although it has become monotonous – the action I despise is the AFL type bat-back or tap-back. This deprives the attempted catcher of any real opportunity of taking the ball. If you were clever enough to have a team mate standing behind you and waiting for the tap-back, and the ball was caught cleanly by them without it hitting the ground – then it’s play on !