I was originally told the rule would be that once the ball was passed from the player picking it up to a team mate that advantage would be iver. Ie - team a knock on and player 1 picks up for team b. He has the advantage until he passes to player 2. Should player 2 knock on then team a get the feed at the scrum.

Obviously they've tweaked that slightly but the length of the advantage is still an issue I think. If team b go 80 yards and lose possession in the act of scoring, then the video ref decision if it was called for would be scrum defence as team b were in their own halfwhen tbe incident occured (or so I was told by a referee).

I'm glad that they have implemented the quick 20m tap rule. I suggested this be adopted after I had seen it working well in the NRL last season.
It won't have quite the same effect over here though I imagine, because they will still have to wait for our referees to get back in position, whereas in Aus the second ref will already be there waiting for play to restart.

I can also see that rule about markers not being square causing some trouble, yet another rule open to interpretation from the refs as to whether a player ever properly gets himself square. At least before the ref only had to look how they were positioned when the ball was played, but now they'll need to keep watching the markers to see if they ever get square [iafter[/i the ball is played and play continues.

What the change to the marker rules means is that if the tackled player moves one step sideways off the mark, the markers still have chance to get in the game rather than being out of it until the dummy half makes a cheap ten metres.

Sound like reasonable changes to me

it is pretty obvious in this situation that a common sense approach would need to be applied


therefore we are stuffed

What happens if Team A knock on, Team B pick the ball up and their player is subsequently abducted by aliens?

It's about as likely to happen as the other scenario being used to decry the change...

It is a joke, once you go past the advantage line that should be advantage over. It will basically give the attacking team a free play where they can try anything to score safe in the knowledge that they will get the ball back.

The sooner the RLIF makes rule changes, and the game across the world is standardised, the better. It is a complete joke that the English game and the NRL change the rules to suit themselves.

Who is decrying it?
I was taking it to a possible outcome with the obvious outroar that would follow from some.
Also a team knocking on and the opposition picking up and going full length is hardly unheard of and a player knocking on in the act of scoring is hardly unheard of either.

Watched Wakefield v Featherstone friendly and the advantage rule led to flinging the ball along the line with a hit and hope kick downfield. Then after the players had run the length of the pitch they had to return to form the scrum. To be honest it made the game look amateur.

Just my opinion, but i did quite like the other rules implemented in trial games which seem to have been overlooked.

I saw the new advantage rule in play today.

Scorpions knock on about 10 metres out. Wigan kids gather and rather than run just hoof a big angled kick to the winger.

Scorpions managed to get back and regather but the ref calls it back and it's a Wigan head and feed at the scrum where the original knock on took place. I think many a dozing winger/full back will be caught out by this as if the attacking winger (Wigan in this case) wins the race to the ball then it is a try most of the time but it is risk free as if the defence gathers they get possession back in the form of put in at the scrum anyway.

I'm not in a place to say whether it is a change for the better but it got people thinking that's for sure.

Having thought about it further I think it will see many sides simply view the advantage rule as a chance to punt through trying to expose space behind the team that have just knocked on no matter where they are on the field.

It is a free play as opposed to advantage though and I think it figures that some measure of what advantage is should be introduced. Once the player crosses the gain line being the most common sense approach.

Another idea would be to stop messing about with a game that wasn't broken from the off.

The advantage rule could encourage the chip over as if they fail to regather nothing is lost and they are back to scrum with feed.
Whereas in recent reasons it has been deemed to risky as completing sets and gaining ground have been the priority.

Looking at how teams are approaching it perhaps not!

In our first game against Dewsbury it was obvious the referee (Thomason) had not received this memo as he applied neither the advantage or dragging rules against either team