Cynical tactics have crept in to the game for years. Unfortunately with greater rewards comes greater desire to succeed.
Coaches look for anything that can give their team an edge. We need the RFL to be ready to amend rules sooner rather than once a year.
My personal hate is when a tackled player puts their ankles together and makes like a dolphin, faining been held down. Often winning a penalty because refs are unsighted or behind play.
The sooner we penalise "cheating" the better. I assume we will have to wait for the Aussies to take the lead.

It's not much of an issue in Aus, their rucks are far far cleaner and quicker. There's much less messing around from the tacklers and tacklees in the NRL. Less milking and much less Wendyball style moaning and claiming for penalties than our Wendyball wannabe players we have in Super League. That's why the likes of Josh Hodgson looks so good over there. I don't think he's a patch on Daryl Clark and Clark would be absolutely amazing over there with the cleaner rucks they have. But because he doesn't get as much chance to shine around our painfully slow messes that our rucks are he didn't get a look in for England in the Autumn and with our Super League refs and just one ref on the pitch we had in the Autumn Hodgson just looked distinctly average in those games.

The Josh Jones one was probably the most ridiculous I've seen, poor call from Child.

I still don't think there is anything wrong with the rule, if the defender is interfering with play then he should be penalised, if not as in the case above Jones should have been pulled for a forward pass.

I don't think they even need to bin players to stop it - if the ref thinks they're milking (or thrown the ball purposely into a defender), then simply penalise them for unsportsmanlike conduct - if they're losing possession, they'll soon stop.

I hate it when a ref calls milking at a play the ball when the attacker is either whaling around, or trapping the defender in - if you're calling milking, blow the whistle and penalise it - would soon nip it in the bud.

I agree with you on this. As an example on last weeks game with Cas v Leigh , Yes i thought Liam hood did milk it,however Mc Shane was in the Leigh line, and made no attempt to get out of the way.

I think its a slightly grey area, as all the players who have rolled away have got up on their knees creating a blocking area. I honestly believe if they are caught in the ruck they shouldnt make themselves so big and an easy target for smart hookers to aim at. Ultimately they all know what they are doing then complain about being penalised

I seem to remember it happen quite a lot in a couple of rounds of the nrl last year. Then the refs stopped giving the penalty and gave a knock on and it stopped almost instantly. Hopefully we can follow suite.

Having said that there are some where the tackler ends up at the wrong side of the ruck and disadvantages the 9. (I'm thinking specifically when the 9 has to jump/reach over a player to get the ball). If there isn't a genuine attempt to get out the way it should still be a penalty.

If a player simply doesn't have time to get out of the way around the PTB then the referee could manage the situation by delaying the PTB.

This of course would slow down the game and would remove the attacking sides impetus, but it is one very clunky "solution".

Bottom line is it's the defenders responsibility to get out of the way. We need to be careful otherwise defenders will deliberately stay in the room area knowing they won't be penalised.

I know it's subjective however imo the ref needs to make a call as to whether the defender is in a position where they are interfering (whether the ball is thrown deliberately at them or not), if they are then it is a penalty to the attacking side. If they are judged to be in a position where they are not interfering with play and the attacker has thrown the ball at them it's play on, if the bank has gone forward like the jones one then it's a forward pass.

Brough wasn't even in the way. There was no legal pass that could have put him in the way. It was the most blatant case of cheating to get a penalty I've seen. He passed over a foot forward! To me, Jones should have been binned for 10. We need to get this out of our game and quick. Before anyone says 'Cas did it', I didn't agree with McShane doing it in our game last week as he could have passed around the player or in the other direction, even though the player on the ground was in the ruck area. We don't need this slowing the game down.

Exactly. Sometimes it may be a 'grey area', but in Jones's case it certainly wasn't. And he should certainly have been penalised.

If the defender is making an attempt to move from the ruck then it can be argued that he is discharging his responsibility. A penalty for something a player can't avoid is a pointless and unjust penalty. As is always the case a penalty is designed to discourage the infringement; if a player is rolling away and has the ball thrown (forward) at him what is it we are discouraging by penalising him?

Way i see it is .....would the pass that has hit the 'defender' be a legal pass in normal play ?
ie would a player deliberately throw a pass to the ground or forward ? the answer to that is no so unless a defender is actually stood in the way, being above waist height of the ball, as that is usually more or less the height of where a ball is passed from DH, then it should be penalised and given to the defending team, how can the Referees ignore the usual rules of the game because someone has chosen to throw the ball forward and onto the ground as happened yesterday ?
If a player on the ground as Brough was wasn't there why would you purposely aim a pass to the floor ?

It's cheating and it needs to be stopped - that one last night was disgraceful and Jones should be made to apologise for it !!!