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.
Dean - Surry Hills
Roar Pro
AFL shepherding provides cover for players who have possession of the ball. People giving chase generally have their eyes directed at play and at those around them, and not sky-wards like when a high kick takes place in RL. NFL is similar, in that peripheral vision allows players to generally brace prior to impact from the blockers.
Meesta Cool
Guest
Dean.. I do not watch much ARL, are tere actually a lot of injuries caused by blocking players?. I wasn't advocating tackling or shoulder charging, merely ' defender being able to position himself to defend/protec the personn jumping for the ball.
Dean - Surry Hills
Guest
Shepherding AFL style, or like the blocking that takes place in the NFL could lead to a host of injuries, with players taken out off the ball. One effect it would have though, is to limit the amount of times teams would go to the air.
Meesta Cool
Guest
I made an error in the statement above, -- it should have read, "The premise for this thought is that in all probability 80% of high kicks not <80.".. . but I bet you all knew that anyway, coz I do it all the time..
npollard
Roar Rookie
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!
Meesta Cool
Guest
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..
Meesta Cool
Guest
with the kick now being a najor part of our try scoring and rightly so, I believe that the time has come to allow the defending team to 'block' anyone running in to take the catch. In this, I do not mean that the defender can tackle or 'hammer' the attacking player, but he can make it more difficult for the player to get at the defender going for the ball. -- The premise for this thought is that in all probability <80 of contests the attacking team have the advantage of a 'run' at the contest and as was stated earlier, even if the defender wins the contest, he has little chance of not being 'smashed' as his foot touches the ground, The attacking team definitely hold the ace card...... Yup.. allow obstruction.. same with the high ball aimed directly at a full back.
Dean - Surry Hills
Roar Pro
Great concept Fonzie - I like your idea of reward for forgoing field position. A 7th tackle would be awesome. I think that players would learn to place more importance on ball security if a dropped ball rule was brought in. As it currently stands, there is probably less than half a dozen knock-backs in most games where a player drops the ball directly from a pass. The majority of knock-backs come from kicks, and a new rule might mean that teams would be far more willing to let the ball bounce, rather than attempting to catch the ball on the full. This in turn would lead to an increased amount of unpredictable moments, because you never know what's going to happen after a ball has bounced.
Dean - Surry Hills
Roar Pro
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?
Arthur Fonzarelli
Guest
If you call all dropped balls knock on do you not think that this will reduce ball movement ?? The game will become even more predictable. generally refs are very harsh on dropped balls and anything marginal is called as a knock on anyway. Whats wrong with tries from kicks ? Surely the kicking skills, plus the catching and diffusals ADD to the spectacle and unpredicatibility. Maybe a simple solution is that if you play out your set of 6 without kicking, you get an EXTRA tackle ie a 7th tackle ?? But you cannot kick on the 7th you must run the football. Be interesting to trial that rule in a pre season game.
Mella
Guest
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.
npollard
Roar Rookie
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.
Dean - Surry Hills
Roar Pro
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 !
Dean - Surry Hills
Roar Pro
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 !
Dean - Surry Hills
Roar Pro
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.
Dean - Surry Hills
Roar Pro
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.
Dean - Surry Hills
Roar Pro
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.
Blaze
Guest
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!
Ian Whitchurch
Guest
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.
npollard
Roar Rookie
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?