Ateotd the refs can only penalise what they see. If they get conned by a player that isn't their fault. The only way this will change is if all clubs get together and say we need to change this for the good of the game.

totally agree the play the ball area needs sorting, at every play the ball you never know whos gonna get pinged

brilliant interview by macdermott and I agree with every word he says.
the ptb needs sorting. child had an awful game but boy it must be bloody hard at times

Quite correct, the whole things a shambles. Especially when the tackle is complete ,this practice of turning the tackled player on his back. Thus preventing a quick play the ball, it obviously favours teams who aren't fit enough or quick enough to get back and form a defensive line. All teams do it so I am not pointing the figure at anyone. However i have a suspicion that it all stems from Nathan brown at the giants and mc guirre at Wigan

All coaches and players need to come together and address the issues that are contributing to the demise of the product on the field. I always like teams to play a 'pure' game without cutting corners and looking for penalties, in the long term the team and its players are 100% focused on the elements they can control and perform better/more consistently.

Like last season, we'll win more of the major trophies on offer than leeds will this year.

Aren't you the one who claimed last year pre wembley that leeds would win a major trophy again before Hull did?

I'm confident leeds won't win the GF if they play us or cas on the way

Exactly. He made himself look stupid bleating to the press about things his own team does

None of which happens in the NRL where there are 2 refs and players have learned to adhere to the rules or suffer the consequences. It doesn't happen when thaler and bentham are reffing because the players know they can't get away with it

Isn't that a bit of a forlorn hope Seth? Why would professional coaches do that when their careers and their players careers depend on getting every possible advantage to win games? If I was cynical I'd say that coaches will try and push rules to the limit to gain an advantage if they can profit by it. We see it at every play the ball with all the protagonists trying to get an advantage so you get players locking each other in and lying in the way and peeling off as slowly as possible making an awful spectacle.

I also remember when coaches wanted to bring in the interchange rule and have unlimited substitutions. It was dressed up as a safety measure but it was really just a safety net for coaches to ensure no tired players were vulnerable on the field. In the end the NRL got rid of the rule because they saw it for what it was.

The governing body needs to grow a pair and decide that it's going to sort out the PTB. It can be done. It never used to be as bad as it is now. I think it will take rule changes to make it happen.

Well not really seeing as though he said Leeds were guilty of it also.

The one on Hulls line when he literally just let go of the ball was quite pathetic.

It probably is but as a mutual coming together to save a game thats deteriorating rapidly i live in some faint hope. From a coaches perspective ive found it more beneficial for my teams to focus on the pure aspects of the game and maintain that ethos with pushing boundaries to gain an advantage being detrimental in the long run. A prime example being the number of times you see the first marker tied up just leaning on the player playing the ball, and they get cut apart behind the ruck, if their focus was on the ball and their positioning instead of slowing the PTB theyd be more effective.

Think the Maguire way of coaching is largely to blame. It was successful so was copied. We now have some bloody awful cynical tactics.

Hopefully the Powell model will be successful and that will be copied instead. It would least improve attacking play if not a lot of the PTB antics.

I'm more than happy to bookmark that little gem for future reference.

The only way to solve this is to have two refs, but with the dogs abuse they get its tough enough to have a full set for 1 per game...

People won't like it but the supporters actually share a large portion of the blame here.