bren2k wrote:
Of course some players cheat - they always have done and they always will; and I know for certain that some of that cheating is coached.
The issue of milking penalties is becoming endemic however - and no team is immune - although I think some of that is down to poor ruck management by the sport in general; if a tackled player perceives that he's 'won' the ruck and by extension a quick ptb, then he feels aggrieved that despite finding his front and the ref calling held, he can't get up and ptb because a large pile of tacklers are untangling themselves and rolling all over him - then he will thrash around and be theatrical in an attempt to get the refs attention and be awarded a penalty.
I've said it a million times before - but if we got control of the ruck back from cheating coaches and players, the milking of penalties would reduce immediately; but we won't.
Agree with all of that and I would suggest that all players try to get away with as much as the ref will allow, be it taking as long as the ref will allow to clear the ruck, hanging on to the ball if the opposition want a quick scrum, allowing the ball to go out of play when it's a drop out etc etc and much of this is just "being professional".
It's the theatrics that we dont want to see. ANY diving to ground unnecessarily or pretending to be injured to slow the play down and the Catalan "new trick" of making subs ready and then coincidentally having players off for a head test.
I have to say that all of this can be dealt with by having strong officials who know what goes on.
Having said all that, if Trinity were defending their line and an opposition needed "holding down" for an extra couple of seconds to prevent a score, ALL of us would want Trinity to slow things down.
Again, it's up to the man in the middle to say "get on with it" or penalise the guilty party.
As for the blatant diving, the pundits should be ripping players to pieces for any of this stuff and maybe their should be a word to said players coach and if there are persistent offenders, let's have them called out publicly.
funny that every other club probably has the same opinion of him towards their own team.
