Robert Hicks

Quote: Bullseye "I always wondered when "dropping" the ball at the PTB was suddenly ruled as a knock on. I've only seen black and white footage of that!

I agree that if refs enforces the playing of the ball with the foot and no more rolling it'd be easy to see. However it would advantage the defending team. '"

Don't mind them rolling it, but if they do, then playing with the foot should in that case be compulsory. I think a proper and legal PTB can be done perfectly fast enough to be fair to both sides.

Quote: Bullseye "There needs to be a wholesale clean up of the PTB and I think that 2 refs is the only way to do it now that clubs are so well versed in the dark arts of dominating at the ruck. I think refs need to clamp down on the cynical stuff used by defensive teams like
Agree. All examples though of how nowadays whatever the rule is, coaches and players will find ways to play right up to the boundaries of the rule, to try to gain an advantage. That's what also leads some to have an impression of inconsistency. For example, a player delays the tackle by the manner and speed of getting off. There will come a particular millisecond when the ref has had enough and blows for a pen.

The next set, an opposition player does just the same, but manages to break contact just as that millisecond was about to lead to a pen.

For all intents and purposes, the incidents were identical, yet one is a pen, and one isn't. To a fan of the team being penalised, it looks unfair. Add to the mix that a ref does not time any tackle, in milliseconds or at all; and will vary his informal timing depending on the circumstances even within one match, and you can see it becomes impossible to achieve consistency. Put another way, you can't say that any fan griping at such an individual call doesn't have a case.

Of course, in all tackles are different, and in some, it's possible to get up and off extremely quickly, where in others, the number and angles and tangling up of defenders may genuinely result in a lengthy PTB. So imposing an arbitrary accurate time limit doesn't work.

But if you ignore the time taken, and instead look at the actions of the player subjectively - i.e. however long it took, did he just complete his tackle, and then get off, or has he delayed it, when he could have avoided delaying it?

That would be the ideal rule. Maybe it is the rule, who knows. But that would mean some tackles would be penalised after a very short dleay, and others would have a very long delay, yet not be penalised at all. Which is I think probably where we are today, so maybe the refs are told currently to judge the tackle on its merits, not on the clock. As I say, who knows? They never tell us.

RLFANS.COM MERCHANDISE

RLFANS.COM SPONSORS & HELP