Rule changes and potential problems : Sat Feb 11, 2012 11:05 am  

Just been trawling through a few of the other fan sites on RL Fans and picked up on a few points which I spotted myself last night. I'd be interested to hear other fans views on the following........
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1) The Danny Williams "dead in goal" incident - Right, the Saints player has overcooked his grubber and Williams has caught the ball on the full a good yard or so out of the filed of play in his eagerness to get a quick tap on the 20. He's penalised as the ball hasn't hit the deck, and Saints score from the resulting dropout. Why should the defending team be penalised for a poorly executed kick by having to wait for a, potentially, extra 4/5 seconds while the ball rolls over the hoardings etc? Surely we should be trying to speed the game up, not slow it down?

2) The "dive" incidents at the PTB - On at least 3/4 occasions Saints players dived forwards after the tackle to imply interference at the PTB. I heard Silverwood on one occasion tell the Saints player "it was a dive". Should this not result in a penalty for the defending team due to cheating? If a footballer is deemed to have done the same thing he is quite rightly booked. Teams like Saints (and dare I say a certain Mr Tomkins) who get on a roll like last night will try this all night long to gain an advantage. Refs need to clamp down early season otherwise it will get out of hand.

3) Passing after ref calls "held" - Again with the new rule change where a player can go back and PTB after releasing the ball after being held I can see teams chancing their arm. With no deterrent of a penalty for late release of the ball I can see a lot of players chancing their arm and if they get away with one or two that the ref chooses to ignore then they will score tries off the back of it. I can only see this rule slowing the game down significantly.

Any thoughts"

Re: Rule changes and potential problems : Sat Feb 11, 2012 11:24 am  

1. I think the rule as it stood was fine and really didn't need tinkering.

2. There's also the issue of them stealing a couple of yards with the dive.

3. I think this one is a reasonably common sense change - as long as it's applied as it should.

Re: Rule changes and potential problems : Sat Feb 11, 2012 11:38 am  

Iain wrote:

1. I think the rule as it stood was fine and really didn't need tinkering.

2. There's also the issue of them stealing a couple of yards with the dive.

3. I think this one is a reasonably common sense change - as long as it's applied as it should.

I agree with this.

I can't see any good coming from the first rule other than to bring more dispute into the game and have it waste endless threads on the boards as a talking point! The diving really narks me, even when our players are at it I just shout to get on with it. It's even more annoying when you have momentum and someone decides to start pratting around, it's cheating plain and simple. I think the third one is much like the first, in the sense its just there to cause arguements.

If it aint broke, don't fix it!

Re: Rule changes and potential problems : Sat Feb 11, 2012 12:41 pm  

The first one was brought in because we had the daft situation where a player can make theball dead when standing one foot in one out which was penalising the kicker who had made a god kick but it was nullified by a player or coach finding a loophole in the way the game was played.
I agree that Williams was unlucky last night but I can sere the good side of the rule and if he had just let it drop to the floor he could have picked it up quickly and taken the restart

Re: Rule changes and potential problems : Sat Feb 11, 2012 2:41 pm  

Beaten to it..

rule 1 was the other way round. Good kicks nulified by players making the ball dead.

Diving we'll it ain't football, refs sin binning for driving would be rediculous when high shots dont get yellows, you would also need to determine between a dive and players struggling to play the ball then the opposition let go causing a fall.

Players were not getting penalised and refs were being discretionary in their approach. This way players can play on and refs can determine the tackle point. So should stop players cadging yards, and not leave refs having to guess whether it was offloaded before or after the call as with no penalty no real hardship in telling them to go back and play it.