Surely the longstanding tradition is that someone posts this on Friday or Saturday night, not Tuesday?

I don't know why the ref can't just call held. It's a clear definitive signal that the tackle is complete and the tacklers must clear the ruck. If the ref doesn't call dominant or surrender and tacklers don't clear by the count of 3 it's a penalty. If he does call dominant or surrender they will have had a second or two longer in the tackle anyway, so still have to clear by the count of 3 (refs head not out loud)

I don't believe there's a need to call dominant or surrender. If a player goes to ground, the ref still calls held and gives 3, likewise if driven to ground.

Cut down the amount of calling the ref has to do, and save us and the players hearing the constant drone of the refs voice. To me just helps the ref become more central to the proceedings, which is not what they should be about.

Problem is that Cummings has tried to speed the game up so much that the ref is concentrating more on being on the 10, i.e too far away from the tackle to made the right call on the spot. There have been instances where a held call has been wrong and a player penalised for releasing the ball.

If there is a single definitive call to tacklers it would remove instances like the one with Thaler last season where he called out the tackle number, tackling players then released the player being tackled who promptly put the ball down in goal. Thaler gave the try as he claimed his calling the number was only advisory. Complete mess.

I personally don't think referees are as fit or as positionally adept as they ought to be given they are full time. They all seem to follow Cummings lazy laconic style from when he was in the middle.

Silly rule changes like not allowing the ball to be held at the base of the scrum, allowing players to simply make an effort at playing the ball when it should be mandatory to play it with the foot all help create a game that is too fast for refs to be able to cope with.

The lack of use of touch judges is a farce, as is there apparent inability to judge forward passes.

James Child does look promising though, but he was the worst TJ for missing forward passes

The problem is that a count of 3 is an arbitrary time limit which may or may not be long enough to clear the ruck. It would in some circumstances allow tacklers to hold down the tackled player for longer than necessary and in other circumstances penalise tacklers despite them clearing the ruck as quickly as possible.

Turn the volume down on the ref please, he`s doing my head in.

Agreed, turn the ref down and the crowd up. Easy peasy.

Fed up to the back teeth mate

Maybe we should bombard sky with E-mails

miking the ref was the stupidist idea ever. Turn the mike on the crowd, we want to hear the atmosphere!

No I do want to listen to moron speak from the South Stand at the Whino's or the rubbish from the side terrace at Knowsley Road!

What a difference watching the 2 NRL games this morning, you didn't have all the MOVE, HOLD HOLD, GO shouting, just them going through the tackle count.

The refs shouting helps the defence too much, just be quiet and if the players don't get off the attacker or are offside then penalise them.

You must have been watching a different game to me.

What really get's on my nerves is the constant gerremonsard and foooorrrrwward and other such moronic calls from the crowd. It's booooring. Can't they think of anything original.

this thread shows the ignorance of many RL fans with modern day RL.

theres a reason for these calls.

i dont know what nrl you were watching, i hear it every game

Yep there is!!

The players are too clueless to measure 5 or 10 metres and don't know the rules around the play the ball area so have to be spoon fed every time!!!

well id rather refs give players warning before having games ruined by penalties

too many minor penalties wrecks the flow of the game

refs are making the game more appealing here