Perhaps if they make the player play the ball with his foot it will slow the ruck down enough for a tackling player to get out of the way?

It should be up to the ref to decide if the player is making every effort to not interfere with the PTB.
Of course, you can argue that by being in an offside position, the defending player is interfering but, yesterday, Houghtons "pass" was straight at the player and had he made the same pass, without a defender to aim at, it would have gone straight to ground.

It's a difficult area because if there is a player obstructing the side of the ruck, where the half back wants to pass, there is a risk of a poor pass, which may result in loss of momentum or worse for the attacking side.

Having already seen more penalties for this offence in just a few games than the whole of last season, there has to have been a directive to clear the ruck area and although we got done yesterday, in the longer term it should be a good thing, as long as the ref's are consistent and Campbell pinged both teams for the same offence. Unfortunately, Hull benefited more than Wakefield yesterday but, they wont always be so "lucky".

Don't be silly! Next you'll be asking that a tackled player regains his feet, faces the correct direction and doesn't move from the mark before playing the ball!

People seem to be forgetting that Finn did exactly the same early on??

isnt it only like running at a defender when he is offside to draw the penalty?

Nobody is forgetting it, it's been mentioned several times in all of the threads on this.

But in that circumstance, you will often see the defender raise his arms and not attempt to affect the tackle - result - play on. For it to be the same - the attacker would have to run at the defender, then throw himself to the floor like a wendyball player, pretending that the defender has tackled him and thus, drawing the penalty.

It seems fairly straightforward to me - if the defender is clearly not impeding play and the ahb chucks the ball at him deliberately to draw the penalty - he should be penalised; and yes, I'd advocate that for all teams - including my own - because it's a cheap and grubby tactic that doesn't fit in RL.

I don't like to see it. I think it crept in a little bit at the end of last season and I noticed it a lot this weekend.

Interestingly the RFL Operational Rules state in the Offside Notes:

"Accidental off side Where the Referee is satisfied that interference with play by an off side player is accidental he should order a scrum"

and:

"A player who catches the ball near an off side opponent must not go out of his way to make interference in play by the offside player unavoidable. He should proceed with normal play and rely on the Referee to penalise the off side player if the latter interferes with play. If the catcher deliberately and unnecessarily runs into the off side player then play should proceed."

That tells me that the referees at the moment aren't interpreting the rule properly. Houghton, like others have done, looked for the offside man behind the rook and deliberately threw the ball at him. Reading into the notes above, providing that offside player has done his upmost to get out of the way, play should continue as usual. Hopefully they'll get a handle on it before it gets daft.

There may be other notes and interpretations but the following is in the laws;
"Penalise intentional interference 10.(g) If the ball is played quickly, all players will not necessarily have time to retire the prescribed distance.
They should be penalised only if they intentionally interfere with play – either actively or passively.
Accidental interference: If the interference with play is accidental, a scrum should be formed. Interference should not be considered accidental when the player concerned has had opportunity to remove himself from the area in which play is taking place."
This seems fairly clear to me - all the ref has to do is decide if the interference was accidental or not. So, in the case of the ahb throwing the ball directly at a prone player, clearly accidental so scrum (presumably head and feed to the prone player's team).

One occasion yesterday when the Hull player just stepped over the ball rather than playing it.

The refs needs to remember to use their discretion in this sort of situation but the rucks are such a mess nowadays you get players trying anything to delay them in defence and players doing all they can to get a quick ptb or a penalty in attack.

I’m sick of players deliberately lying in the way of the man playing the ball or the dummy half. Similarly I hate the milking of penalties by the attacking team. It’s cynical rubbish.

It’s a nightmare to referee all that and keep markers square and a decent 10m.

We need two refs on the field.

Maybe before we go for the two refs approach we should actually get the touch judges and in goal referees to earn their corn rather than prance up and down the touch line ignorant of what's actually happening on the field.

Remember last season when BJB got sin binned for not clearing the rook when he was down injured.