Quote: Ferocious Aardvark "It's not a separate offence in the rules. It is just foul play. The refs were given a directive that a late hit on the kicker was an automatic 10 min sin bin, but like many things, it has seemingly died a quiet death.
That's the thing with the rules. (Apart from them needing a total rewrite that is.) You can't just look in one place and know all about whatever you need to know.'"
The real trouble with the rules is that the written version doesn't really count and to know what actually matters you have to go to the 'interpretation' currently in vogue and actually being used in games.
The problem there is that the a new 'interpretation' of the rule will be in the papers, traditionally at the start of the season, but then the RFL/referees director/refs themselves will change the new 'interpretation' to an updated, even newer version with no announcement from anyone; this updated version is often a simple reversion to where the old 'interpretation' is suddenly back in use. Through all this, the written rule will probably remain unchanged, as though they were protected like ancient parchment scrolls. At the end of the day the rules are on-line and could be changed, if there was a will to do it. It's not like they have to publish and print a paper book.