2023 NRL rule amendments confirmed

[Ride the Lion to Zion]

It was only for scrums when the ball went into touch. And this was for them to be set 10m.or 20m in from the sideline

I've seen a few restart PTBs and scrums taken from 10m or 20m in-field rather than the middle in the first two rep rounds, so at least maybe that boring consensus is starting to splinter.

When the rule was changed, we had a raft of experts regurgitate the line that a centre-field scrum "opens up both sides of the pitch" and that quickly settled into orthodoxy.

There are many circumstances where if a team are prepared to put depth in their line on a scrum play, having all attackers (or all bar one) on the same side offers more options. Plus it stretches the defence laterally, making it harder, particularly for defenders breaking from the scrum, to set the defensive line on tackle 2.

Knockons scrums to be set where they occurred

With the exception of 10m line scrums to prevent teams gaining an advantage from an error made close to the opposition goal-line, play should always resume where it broke down.

Artificially moving the mark to set positions transmits the appearance of an attack v defence training drill orchestrated by the ref.

 

[Ride the Lion to Zion]

We need an amended protocol for bunker referrals. An incident in the women's All Stars game illustrates why.

Attacker was trying to place the ball over the goal-line, lost control, and it ended up in the hands of a defender. Should have been "Play On" but instead the ref felt compelled to ask the bunker to check for grounding. Nobody had claimed the try, but the video ref still had to plough through the futile exercise of looking at all available angles for something which everybody knew hadn't happened.

How much time does the bunker currently spend confirming things which need no confirmation? And then the NRL leadership laughably tell us, when they keep changing the rules, that they want to speed the game up.

Can you imagine the effect on cricket if every play-and-miss was referred to the third umpire, even when neither the bowler nor anyone behind the wicket had appealed?

 

[Captain Apollo]

They don't go to the Bunker because anyone "claims" a try. It is not similar at all to the 3rd Umpire in cricket where a team asks for a review and has a limited number. The referee has the discretion to ask for one when it is a possible try scoring position. Whether it is right or wrong, granted, that is debatable.

 

[Ride the Lion to Zion]

They don't go to the Bunker because anyone "claims" a try. It is not similar at all to the 3rd Umpire in cricket where a team asks for a review and has a limited number. The referee has the discretion to ask for one when it is a possible try scoring position. Whether it is right or wrong, granted, that is debatable.

The argument is that refs are applying jobsworth paranoia rather than rational discretion. They're sending decisions like the one I cited to the bunker when there's maybe a 1% chance of a grounding.

The very fact that nobody has claimed or celebrated a try is a good indication that a bunker referral would be completely pointless.

When an attacking team are held up over the goal-line and retain possession, it's in their interest to quickly get on with play. They don't want to stand around waiting while the defence recovers and resets. The option to decline a review should be available. A quasi reverse version of the captain's challenge.

 

[Someguy]

Can we introduce a rule whereby commentators and all other people associated with the broadcast are not allowed to bet on NRL