Quote: --[ WW ]-- "--"There's no happy medium with ruck speed. I can remember threads on here 15-20 years ago bemoaning the scootathon nature of games. If you had a hooker who was quick out of play the ball you could march up the field really quickly and easily and people would complain that we weren't getting to see any classy halfback play, no structured attacks to overcome well set defenses.
Fast forward to today and it's the opposite. Dummy half scoots are far less common, and most of the game is attackers running at a set defensive line that is well organised and difficult to get past'"
The 2008 world cup was the turning point. The consensus was that the speed of the ruck in SL resulted in England not being able to handle the wrestling tactics of the southern hemisphere teams. Of course, having the likes of Paul Sykes, Lee Smith and Rob Purdham in the starting line up had nothing to do with it
Despite the wrestling, the NRL seem to have got the balance right, but it seems we're not even trying to improve it over here.