The whole stripping the ball out is getting annoying. I don’t think you can blame the refs as it’s largely 50/50 whether it’s a loose carry or an actual strip. Every tackler needs to wrap the ball up to stop the offload. 2 refs is only solution I can think of, and even then it’s still bound to be contentious.

WRT comments on Powell. I think a coach rarely has the full package. McDermott to me wasn’t much of a skills coach and our rugby under him was fairly poor, but he knew how to win a final, get a team motivated and manage big egos. Powell to me, coaches a good style of rugby, and manages to improve average players the most out of any coach in SL. Whether that’s enough to win finals remains to be seen.

I'd also be for a trial of limiting the players who can get involved in a tackle to 2.

2 referees will help a lot imo

Wouldn't like this. Always enjoy seeing gang tackles and players clattered into touch or in goal. Also, before you know it we'd have refs giving penalties as soon as a 3rd player laid a finger on the carrier, regardless of whether they were playing an effective part of the tackle.

For me is hard to police any way around. Now the players are fitter, two or three man tackles and a wrestle on the floor is the norm. Given that, if the onus was on the ball carrier to look after the ball, we'd have turn overs every set.

Like Kaeru Jims suggestion.

Agree, but we would need to double the size of the first grade ref pool. Not sure that can be done in short order

We've already got 2 refs, one of them is called a video ref. He has several views of any tackle situation and could quickly intervene if the onfield ref gets it wrong. I also think the touch judges should do more to help the ref regarding offsides, forward passes, knock on etc.

I honestly think prevention is better than cure. We need to make the rules simpler and easier to enforce (and get right), and MINIMISE the number of judgement calls officials need to make.

One referee is sufficient if the players are incentivised correctly. i.e. if there is no competitive advantage to be gained from an action, they will stop doing it.

one ref didntbsee 3 sneaky ball steals by mcshane. 2 refs would

Not definitely. But if he doesn’t see the need to try that tactic in the first place we can get on with the game without 2 referees or a stoppage and penalty/scrum.

But people will always try to get an advantage either inside or outside of the rules - it's like diving in football. You can't bank on people playing lawfully so you need to regulate to counteract it. Either two refs or use the video ref more, as others have suggested - there are natural delays in the game anyway so it shouldn't impact overly.

As a suggestion how about the sport is great leave it alone.

Refs are already doubling up on weekends cos we dont have enough so 2 refs is virtually an impossibility and as for using video ref more pfffft you must be having a laugh surely?

Let's just accept refs cant see thru bodies, are human, will make mistakes just like players and coaches do.

Fans worry too much about referees.

The ruck is a mess and has been for a while.

The game needs to reach out to new audiences and I don’t think we can afford to have these obvious frustrating aspects to the game.

Ball security in the tackle and ruck is a bit of a lottery; most calls seem 50/50 because it’s very difficult to establish intent with three or four blokes wrestling.

There are also too many stoppages around this issue.

We might never get it perfect but it is a clear area where the game could be working better IMO.

Rugby Union's rucks are s hell of a mess compared to our 3 men tackles and nobody moans about them impacting viewing figures. The average non RL fan doesn't turn off or not watch cos the rucks are a mess.

The game has never been faster or more competitive.

People complain about the wrestling in the game but that is now part of the game and is a much worked on and is now a skill in the sport.

The only way to sort any ruck issues and wrestling techniques is to play touch and pass. Now for a long part of this season weve looked like we was playing touch and pass on our own tryline but do we really want to go there.

The sport is fine its fast the games are competitive, its physical and its played by great athletes. Let's praise the sport for once.