CROSS FORUM NRL 2022 Round 6 Discussion

[Sproj]

The NRL can have these crackdowns as often as they like. The coaches are calling their bluff.

It is ruining the product though. I can't believe Geoff Toovey was the voice of reason on all this. He said the game doesn't need to be faster (and I'd argue it isn't because players are now staying down to get penalties / strategic breathers to counter the 'faster' game), he said most of the time he doesn't know what the six again is for and if they go back to penalties for everything, players will stop doing as much dodgy stuff. It simplifies everything for the ref too and goodness me they need everything simplified!

 

[I bleed Maroon]

It is ruining the product though. I can't believe Geoff Toovey was the voice of reason on all this. He said the game doesn't need to be faster (and I'd argue it isn't because players are now staying down to get penalties / strategic breathers to counter the 'faster' game), he said most of the time he doesn't know what the six again is for and if they go back to penalties for everything, players will stop doing as much dodgy stuff. It simplifies everything for the ref too and goodness me they need everything simplified!

They don't give a shit. Their job is to win footy games to protect their own jobs. Why would they care about anything else? In their minds the health of the game is the NRL's problem.

 

[Big Pete]

So will it be a hip drop penalty everytime a player gets their foot twisted in a tackle now?

No, but if you initiate contact to the ankle with your hip to effect a tackle you're going to run that risk. What helped McInnes escape the charge is the fact that Papenhuyzen wasn't stationary when he went into make the tackle, otherwise it had all the other elements.

 

[LittleDavey]

No, but if you initiate contact to the ankle with your hip to effect a tackle you're going to run that risk. What helped McInnes escape the charge is the fact that Papenhuyzen wasn't stationary when he went into make the tackle, otherwise it had all the other elements.

But if Paps is stationary, then McInnes as the tackler isn't swung around Pap's body by momentum and Pap's own efforts to break the tackle.

I understand what you're saying Pete, and I don't like seeing guys get injured. But look at it this way - players are getting a smaller and smaller target to try and tackle. Can't go up around the shoulders anywhere in case it bounces up off the ball and collects the head. Can't go around the legs in case it gets called a cannonball, hip drop etc. So guys are going in around the waist and hips, which is fine - but is also often ineffective as the attacking player can either keep driving with their legs and/or get an offload away. Either that or they just hang onto arms or the ball, wrestle, hold them up etc etc.

I don't have a solution, just making an observation that in the current state of the game we've got players out there who are visibly trying to avoid these potential problem areas and by doing so, are often not locking up either the player OR the ball. Maybe that's a feature and not a bug.