they tried that but stopped because the media whinged about high penalty counts.
the problem was that the NRL are too spineless to stand up to them, if they had have stayed the course, teams would have learned, the penalty counts would have returned to normal and the game would have been better off
I've said it before, but the only thing they needed to do was actually enforce the sin binning for professional fouls.
You don't let a team get away with 3, 4, 5 intentional fouls back to back on their line and then all of a sudden go "now we'll give you a warning".
Should've been a warning on the second penalty... on the first you give them a bit of leeway, but if there's a second shortly after or there is a consistent effort to give away blatant penalties as soon as they look like getting a quick ptb that is clearly a tactic being incorporated from the defensive side and should start seeing professional fouls.
Previously teams were getting 4-5 chances before a warning... and even after the warning the ref puts the whistle away. Sometime the team stops with the intentional penalties, but I'm sure the ref just doesnt want to be in the spotlight for impacting on the game.
The games this weekend were effectively an attempt at creating those garbage slog fests where the ref just doesn't even bother calling a penalty... except this weekend there were teams making a conscious effort to get off so they didn't get pinged (thinking the refs were actually going to be harsh) and some teams who just took the piss waiting for the ref to do something.
Eventually all the teams will realise they can lay down as long as they want as often as they want, because it's a lottery whether the ref will call it... and you can sure as shit bet there won't be a sin binning unless it's a blatant professional after a line break (which was the case for the cowboys) or your the Broncos, because you know they'll just ping us all game.
There was no consistency within a game let alone across the whole round.
