Four great NRL mysteries that remain unsolved

Good article with lots of interest.

It used to be 7:30 now the scheduled start is 7:45 but most of the time kick-off is 8pm.

Plz no more changes ie headgear compulsory, my god dude this is why nancy boys like urself don't play the game. Enough already we cant rap them in cotton wool, mans game played by men..................................................................................................................

That is easy to solve. Just turn Sydney into a one town team.

I have more than once not bought an NRL team jersey because I didn't like the sponsor, over a hundred bucks and you are a billboard for some one you don't like, I may as well have bought a broncos jumper, Gods, the Raiders were once sponsored by the CMFEU. The NRL really needs to reign it in as well as the weird away jerseys that no-one likes.

For number two, they obviously don't want to take the risk of changing their halfback once again and messing with the halves and team combination. At this point though, I think they might just have to because Pearce clearly doesn't know what he's doing in the high-stakes Origin games and he's got quite a lot of competition now too.

Not entirely true the airbag (or headgear) would decelerate the vehicle thus taking some of the A out of the F=MA (though obviously not as much as having the smaller body hit the bag ie having head gear around the brain not your head) which is why car's have crumple zones. The problem with headgear at present is one - it isn't exactly as cushy as an air bag and two you are putting it on the roof of the van rather than where the impact is.

Turbodewd, Concussion is a F=MA problem, not a k=1/2m(v^2) problem. The problem is not the skull getting cracked - it's the fact that once a body hits another body and stops, the brain - floating like it does in it's bath of liquid - keeps moving forward until it hits the side of the skull and bashes into it. Imagine a van full of people not wearing seatbelts. Now, crash it into a wall - the people inside smash into the inside front of the van. Now, put the airbag on the outside of the van - the front of the van is less damaged, but the people inside still smash into the inside front of the van.

But the padding isn't covering where the freaking impact is.

Also when you do boxing or other fighting sports you get told that well placed blows to the chin or cheek bone are where you force a one punch knock out and that hitting a guy in the top of the head (where head gear protects) is pretty fruitless.

Well for starters you are stating that ignoring the benefits of head gear in this capacity is one of the 5 worst thing in the game so surely you have a peer reviewed study to point to first? but in terms of a wager how about this for a bet – we agree to fund a study on the benefit of the commonly used head gear in the NRL in reducing concussion and the loser pays for the study and then same amount to the other party?

Why has a knock on changed to be a fumble? It is now accepted that if you drop the ball a knock on is called, regardless of if the ball goes forward, straight down, or backwards.

Good article. Give me Rabs and Voss every day of theweek. Channel 9 need to Can Hadley. What a self opinioted, one-eyed, critical. self absorbed garbag commentater he is. I turn off the television when he is on. He makes a call, and even when the video ref clearly shows the referee isc correct, he goes on and on like a bad mother in law. He is annoying as a Wisdom tooth extraction. Free to air only have one live game a week , so why do they need this goose.

I don't think looks should be a reason to remove advertising. Say a company like Jayco sponsors the storm and has their logo on the front of their jersey. The club makes money from it; in turn, when the game is aired jayco pays for their adverts on tv and gets significant exposure, which supports the network which in turn funds the game through tv rights. I lost count last year at the number NRMA tv ads that were played during friday night games when the broncos played.

The issue is that the Broncos get about 3 times more for their jersey sponsorships than say the Eels (that is what happens when you are the only team in town and are guaranteed national FTA exposure for more than 75% of your games.) Pirtek are paying as much to be on the back of the Broncos jersey as they were to be on the front of the Eels. How do you compensate for that? Stuff like this is why the greedy Broncos started Super League. They thought the NSWRL, by having poor deals and restrictions was limiting the capacity for them to earn higher income.

Andrew voss? Yeah he's a good commentator. Very underrated. Problem is every big hit all you hear is "HE HAS JUST MET THE TERMINATOR!"

There is no evidence to suggest that they reduce the chance of concussion. I have played both codes and the guys I played with wore them to stop the onset of cauliflower ears. I'm pretty sure that's why JT wears one. Look, I don't know the coefficient damping factor of head gear padding but If you did the math I think the difference between wearing one and not wouldn't make much of a difference if you were getting hit significantly hard on the head.

Benedict, seroiusly, your comment....Im not sure youre being serious or having a joke in reference to JonD's comments. NRL jerseys are the worst in the world. They are gaudy/busy designs which change yearly and are covered in ads. Hell at least if the ads matched the team colors they might be palatable. But they dont and they are a big yucky!

Benedict, you are trying to tell us, with a straight face, that headgear doesnt absorb some of the energy in a collision?! Noone is saying headgear can eliminate concussions. But without question the padding can absorb some of the energy and reduce the energy transmitted thru to the brain. Views to the contrary arent science-backed.

Every now and then one of these comments pops up that you just don't know whether the person is being serious or having a joke.