Quote: imwakefieldtillidie "That's a fair point. But I do think with any rule, if it was enforced firmly then most sides would quit doing it after a couple of weeks when the penalties mount up. It's a choice they make.'"
That I do agree with; I've been banging on about the ruck for years now, and I still maintain that despite the egregious tactics employed by coaches and players now seeming to be accepted as part of the game, if the RFL decided to deal with it and spent the first few rounds of a new season penalising the shizzle out of anyone who infringed, it would stop quickly - because no coach is daft enough to allow his team to be penalised out of a game. But because they're not daft - they will continue to do it so long as they're getting away with it. I defy anyone to find a SL team that doesn't now deliver wrestle training - I've even seen it offered to junior teams - including use of levers and pain compliance!
I guess my point about this specific issue is that so long as the ball is played backwards from a standing position, and there is an attempt to strike it with the foot, I'm relatively sanguine about whether it actually does or not; and given all the other impediments to a quick ptb, particularly wrestling, I wouldn't want to introduce (or re-introduce) another one.
What I would like to see dealt with however, is stepping off the mark, which is now endemic in the game - and is another reaction to wrestling and slowing down the ptb.