The play of the balls this season is ridulously slow. Yes it should take skill to get round defences but shoudnt the defenders be skillful enough to stop players after a quick play of the ball.

Yes you should give enough time to get up but watching Warrington this year every tackle they are trying to turn the player on their back. aAso a lot of players are having enough time to turn around to make sure their players are set before getting up. Where is the skill in that!

We had this discussion at work and a few people ( supporting different teams) thought this year was more like Union than ever. I pay my money to see skillful play not 3/4 players lying on the floor for 30 seconds each tackle.

Im sorry I would rather watch open flowing rubgy for my £20 a week rather than slow play of the balls.

Can anyone deny that the lying on in the tackle was at another level last night - saints-wigan

It is plain to see that obvious infringments are just getting let go.
Maybe it was just a p£$% poor night for the refs, the amount of forward passes that where missed etc..

Best have a chat with your slug then...

Holding down at the PTB is nothing new in super league but the refs used to blow up for it.

During the saints and Wigan game last night was typical brian noble tactics.

He did it at the bulls and now as got the pies doing it. Another noble trick he has brought to the Wigan game is stealing yards before playing the ball.

Now he is bringing in the negative tatic of kicking the ball dead to get his defence set.

Noble is one of the reasons our game is getting slower.

Its not only nobby though, Leeds, Huddersfield, Catalans do it on a regular basis. Wigoons were kicking to the dead ball line that often last night it had a flavour of rugby union about it.

McRae (Salford) mentioned it on the radio that they were kicked to death by Brough + Drew.

Wigoons were stealing lots of yards at the play the ball but the referee didn't sting the defense for offside.

There's lots of negatives in the game at the moment, which seem to effect the more skillful sides more.

noble started the slowing the play ball down and stealing yards at the play the ball at the bulls.

Even though kicking the ball dead ain't against the rules it's pretty poor a team like Wigan in a saints-Wigan derby would play so negative.