Thread to discuss the rules of the game and refs' interpretation of them

[moto748]

This may die a death, but there’s a few things I’d like to talk about.

The first one is, go back a few years,and we were at a point where refs were blowing up all the time for defenders malingering in the ruck. But this led to abuses where dummy-halves were throwing the ball at defenders on the floor to milk penalties. This situation was obviously unsustainable, so the penalties kinda dried up. Completely. So nowadays dummy-halves are expected to reach around the ankles of (often standing, rather than prone) defenders. Some teams appear to me to have made an art-form out of leaving tacklers standing around in the ruck (Souths, anyone?). Surely the pendulum has swung too far the other way?

One other minor matter: in Wigan’s last game against Salford, Salford had a chance to score, but the player dropped the final pass at the line. In his frustration, he kicked the ball into the stand. And promptly received a pen and a yellow card for his trouble!. Because it’s classed as dissent, apparently. I’m trying to remember whether kicking the ball away has ever been punished in the NRL. I’m not sure. Should it be?

 

[moto748]

I have another one, if anyone's interested; the rabbit punch to the forearm of the ball-carrier: OK, or not OK? I've seen it argued that this only happens if the ball-carrier is hanging onto the tackler, but I'm not convinced this is always the case. Personally, I think it's not a good look which we don't need in the game.