Tomorrows friendly match between Leeds and Wakefield is to be used to trial three new rule changes.

No 1.... The team with head and feed at the scrum will have the option to leave their loose
forward out of the scrum.

No 2.... A charge down of a kick will not result in the reset of the tackle count.

No 3.... When a ball is kicked from a teams own half the opposition will have a 40mtr tap restart.

Interested to see how this works out.

26th Dec EDITED.

N o 3 Should read When a ball is kicked dead from a teams own half the opposition will have a 40 mtr tap restart.

Apologies to all,this is what you get when you have been sat on the couch all day full of Turkey ,wine and beer and you get bored.

3. Makes no sense to me. If I understand it - If you go for a 40/20 and miss by, say, 6 inches, you are penalised by 20m? Not right for me.

2. Understandable.

1. Don't see why this is needed, but if it is the case, then the team without the ball should have EVERY right to use that one-man advantage to push and strike for the ball.

I think you've misunderstood 3. It's only if you kick it dead in goal.

The only rule i would change is that there should be a play off series for relegation as well as promotion.

The scrum is being utilised as a means to restart a match even though it is one of the few times backs have real space. The days of attacking plays from scrims are gone and that is to the detriment of the game, not sure the dropping of a loose into the back line is the way to go but it's worth a try.


Never liked rewarding a team for a poor last play, which resetting the tackle count does.


Aimless negative kicking out is both an easy and negative tactic that will now be penalised.

Well done the RFL.

I like number 2 don't see the need for the others.

Am I missing something here?? You can still push against the head anyway can't you. I thought you just couldn't strike until the hooker who's head it was had done so.

I'd do away with the scrums completely they are a waste of time, if someone knocks on then its a handover, if the ball goes dead from a kick to touch then its a handover from where the ball went out unless its a 40/20 whereby the attacking team would keep the ball, again tapping from where it crossed the touchline. A couple of rules i would like are:
1) If a player catches the ball on the full in his in goal area he can have the option to run it out if he wishes, if he gets tackled behind the line as a result then he still keeps the ball but its tapped from the 10m line as opposed to the 20m, if he calls for the mark after he catches the ball then the play resumes with a 20m tap as normal.
2) a team can refuse to take a conversion after a try if they so wish, and take the option to re-start the game with them taking a tap from the centre spot as opposed to receiving the ball from a kick off. Basically turning two points down but giving them a greater chance of getting four points afterwards, would make close games even more nerve wrecking lol.


What other rules would anyone like to see?

You can, technically, push against the head, but in the past year or 2, pretty much EVERY time I've seen the defending team push, the referee immediately blows his whistle and resets the scrum, as if they did something wrong.

Bleeding joke, really.

The first thing we need to do is to lose an existing rule, IMO.

Get rid of the "accidental" knock-on garbage.

For me, it shouldn't matter whether you are trying to intercept the ball or make a tackle (or anything else).
If the ball comes off you, it's a knock-on, whether you meant it or not.

Referees should not be required to judge what a player is thinking, only what he does (other than in the case of attempted violence, etc.).

Really? So an attacker can deliberately pass or kick the ball at a defender and it should be a knock-on?
Intention is everything in RL.


You'd have a playoff between a club that could be spending £1.6m on players and one that can only be spending a max of £300,000?

Hes talking about when you fail at an interception and instead knock on not talking about getting rid of the "played at" rule.

And as for the second part do you even read things? That is clearly talking about teams in the SL playing off for relegation. So, for example, you could have the top 8 system like now then the other 6 teams play-off for relegation. So for example as soon as you win a game you're safe until you get to a final it would need to be done like the old top 6 but in reverse. So for example the top 2 play each other and one of those is instantly safe or something similar. Not sure how it could be done exactly but hes not talking about playing our bottom teams against the Championships top teams no idea where you could even get that notion from. I dont know if youre a terrible troll or just incapable of reading things properly.

Is he? That's not what he posted. He posted that the ref shouldn't have to judge on a players intentions, ie whether a player is attempting to make a tackle or to catch the ball. If you fail at an interception and knock-on then a scrum is conceded. He is saying that regardless of whether you whether you were attempting to make an interception or make a tackle and the ball comes off you then it should be a knock-on. Which could easily lead to attackers deliberately passing or kicking the ball at defenders and claiming a knock-on. As I said, intention is everything in RL.


Is it clearly talking about that? It doesn't mention either way, and there have been numerous proposals on the VT in the past about such a playoff between the top of 1 league versus the bottom of another. Which is why I asked the question.

As you know I've been banging on about the kicking the ball dead rule for years. I would have taken it one step further and had the tap from where the ball was kicked.

The standing out of the scrum rule is a joke. It's artificially trying to compensate for lack of creativity in the backs (particularly at 6 and 7)

I quite like the charge down rule as well as the kicking it dead rule.

I've never liked the knock on rule when making a tackle. The player is focussed on tackling the man with the ball and stopping the offload and he shouldn't be punished for doing just that.