Just watching the Hudds and Sts game again and the amount of times Huddersfield kick the ball out of the back is ridiculous. Its nota good skill to do that and is just a containing tactic. Id like to see a rule where if the ball is kicked dead from outside the oppositions 30m, the play should be restarted on the 40m line. This would stop this negative tactic imo.

Kicks within the 30m would still restart on the 20m line as attacking kicks will by law of averages go over the dead ball line sometimes.

I'd like to see a rule introduced whereby if the player receiving the pass, catches it ahead of the point at which the passer released it, then this is deemed illegal .

I would suggest we give this offence a catchy name, like an "ahead move" or an "infront catch" or a "forward pass". The game could be restarted by having a scrum, head and feed to the non-offending team.

I accept that this is a fairly revolutionary idea, but I think it may work well.

I agree it's a negative tactic.

I think kicks from inside the 20 going dead should restart with a tap on the 20 as they do now.

Kicks from outside the 20 going dead should restart with a tap from where the ball is kicked.

Why not stop teams from tackling with more than one tackler, that's a negative tactic too...

Just take the rule from Union, kick it dead & its a scrum(we could just hand over) from the place the ball was kicked. if you kick it into the in goal & the defending side catch or ground the ball they get a 20 meter restart. It would encourage more ball handling close to the line as attacking kicks would have to drop just short of the try line to be any good it would also stop the easy extra set of six as you would have to drive the player into the in goal or crowd him to force a mistake.

So you want to reward the defending team for letting the ball run dead?

If they aren't happy with seeing the opposition kick the ball out of the back, then there is a simple solution to stop it: put someone deeper to catch it and run it back.

So why weren't Saints trying to catch it and run it back?

I dont think we were intentionally doing it, it was very blustery inside the stadium, think one of wilkins kick for touch only gained 5 metres or so cos of the wind.

it is intentional.....happens alot in the NRL

Agree with this - probably the only rule from Union I would take to make our game better

Sounds like a good idea but how would you handle situation where both players are running at speed and therefore, while the ball is thrown backwards, it is caught ahead of the point of release? Or would you say that players can’t run with the ball and must pass statically like in netball – that would be easy to referee but I’m not sure it would improve the game?

It's not possible to do that, it's kicked so hard and so direct there is very little chance of stopping it. Hoofing it dead so often is a negative tactic and it was used utterly brilliantly by Huddersfield. It is however a completely negative tactic and is pretty horrible to watch it happen repeatedly.

They don't have to do anything drastic, but change it so that if it's kicked dead from inside the 20 the rules don't change so as to not penalise attacking kicks, but if it's kicked dead from outside the 20 then the restart is on the 40 yard line, not the 20. It negates the negative tactics but doesn't discourage attacking kicks.

I agree, its a negative tactic that needs a rule change, I like your idea and its simple to implement.