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Is the NRL really going to wait until a scheduled meeting of the competition’s rules committee on Thursday to get rid of the 40/20 rule that has already embarrassed the game for too long?
After the ridicule rugby league sustained over the weekend as a result of what happened in the game between Parramatta and Canterbury on Friday night, does the NRL really want to go through another four days of the same before putting things right?
Please, Dave Smith, or Todd Greenberg, or whoever’s area this is, take charge of the situation and remedy it today. Not tomorrow, not on Wednesday, and certainly don’t wait all the way until Thursday.
That would be ridiculous.
Get Wayne Bennett, Tim Sheens, Darren Lockyer and the rest of the rules committee members on a telephone hook-up today and fix it, so the bleeding can stop and we can all move on to talking about something else.
The only sensible thing is to scrap the quick tap rule as a benefit for a successful attempt at a 40/20 kick.
Leaving the re-start as a tap – but only after the defence is set – is an option for consideration, I guess, but I think the best idea would be to go back to awarding a scrum feed to the kicking team.
What was wrong with that as a reward in the first place? Wasn’t it enough? If a team can’t score a try from a fresh set of six inside the opposition’s 20-metre area, well, then, hats off to the opposition for their defence.
If, for some strange reason, the rules committee didn’t want to change the rule back, then Smith, or Greenberg, or whoever, should over-rule them and change it themselves.
If any or all of the members of the rules committee didn’t like that and chose to resign, well, then get some new members, or an entire new committee. Whatever is applicable.
You’re probably like me in that you can’t believe the game is in a situation where the subject of ballboys has dominated discussion over the weekend. A weekend during which there was a round of football, by the way.
Sorry, there is still one game to go, between Penrith and North Queensland at Sportingbet Stadium tonight. That is another good reason why the league should put this drama over 40-20 kicks to bed today. If they do, then maybe tonight we can just talk about the football.
That is, until the next drama in the game erupts, but anything would be a welcome alternative to focusing on ball-boys. They’re just kids who are trying to do what should be a simple job and have a bit of fun via an involvement with an NRL team at the same time.
I hope that when the two Parramatta ball-boys go to school none of their fellow students give them a hard time over what happened when one of the boys threw the ball to Eels winger Val Toutai instead of putting it down on the sideline.
If you look at the replay of the incident on video a few times, had the ball-boy put the ball down on the sideline it wouldn’t have made much difference to how quickly Parramatta would have been able to take the tap anyway.
After receiving the ball, Toutai made his way close to the sideline anyway, before throwing the ball in-field to halfback Chris Sandow for the tap.
What happened, when the referees called Sandow back after he had taken the quick tap and slid over the line for what he thought was a try, is an issue because teams like Parramatta and the Bulldogs are desperately fighting for places in the finals with only a few rounds to go.
Everything unusual that affects results goes under the microscope.
But this matter is, at least, a pretty simple fix, and that is why it makes no sense to wait until Thursday when the job can be done today.
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