EXCELLENT PERFORMANCE in my view by English referee Richard Silverwood in the Australia vs New Zealand test match. Just two penalties in the game, and, what was in my view, a proper application of the knock-forward rules (not every dropped ball is a knock-on).
Mr Silverwood showed you don’t need to blow your whistle at the slighest hold down at the ruck or minor breach of the rules. The 10m rule was devised to give the attacking team space at each play-the-ball, not to put the game into fast-forward mode or won or lost on aerobic endurance and the ubiquitous “momentum” game.
Conversely though, the lack of penalties to “piggy back” a team up the field tended to make the Test match a little boring for many I would think – given the teams spent much of the game marching up and down the field, rather than starting a set of six on the attack. The latter only happened from lost possessions.
The problem with having less penalties in NRL games is that matches would become very boring, at least for a while – without penalties and knock-ons the teams would have to learn how to take chances at their own end of the field to ever be able to attack their opponents at the scoring end of the field.
If the number of penalties is reduced, and/or the reward reduced (eg change the rule so there is no kick to touch allowed from a penalty), then rugby league (at NRL level at least) would almost certainly need the 6 tackle rule changed to something like a “4 + 4 tackle rule” i.e. the six tackle rule is permanently changed back down to four, but if you cross half-way line in possession the tackle count restarts with a fresh set of four tackles.
http://tribe13.wordpress.com/#comment-599
