THE RL1908 BLOG

News, Reviews & Opinion - Sean Fagan - RL1908.com

I've been advocating for some time that one of the biggest problems the game has today is the non-enforcing of certain rules by referees, and consequent general degrading of standards in the play-the-ball in particular. The reason there is so much lack of discipline in the game today, is because of:

1. The harshness of penalties (i.e. a free kick downfield plus 6 tackles).

2. The fact that NRL referees prefer to "manage" games rather than to penalise infringements when they see them. Why do they do that? Because of the effect that awarding a penalty can have on a game.

If the punishment for an incorrect play-the-ball was a scrum or hand-over instead of a penalty, we would see referees far more frequently pull players up for the offence & the problem fixed.

The introduction of the 10m rule and uncontested play-the-balls has turned RL into a game of possession - it is time that the RL Laws were overhauled to recognise that, and get rid of this nonsense where some laws are not enforced out of fear of impacting on the result of a match.

The fear only exists because of the severity of a penalty in 2007 (free kick PLUS six uncontested tackles, with 10m rule) is 100 times more than it was in 1908 (free kick, one tackle, and defence merely needing to be on-side).

As American football (which also came from 19th century RU laws) found out 50 years ago, there is now an argument in RL that penalties for offences should be graded.

At the moment, RL is all about getting the better of the referee and the laws, not playing football.