What diving epidemic? Diving is when a player feigns injury when no contact or minimal contact occurs. In league that rarely happens, what happens is a player stays down if he is hit in the head because he knows that he will receive a penalty. Striking a player in the head is illegal. I don't like the situation but it's in the rule books.
The refs both on and off field are quite good at differentiating between when a penalty is required and when a player hasn't been hit head high. If anyone has any examples of a player staying down after not being part of an illegal play and receiving a penalty or diving when there has been no contact or minimal contact please share.
But the point is that it SLOWS THE GAME DOWN. It takes roughly a minute for the player to dive, the ref to call a halt to the game, the video ref to check it and the ref to then adjudicate.
Rugby League is a free flowing game, especially at its best. The last thing we need are 4-5 minute long stoppages to an exciting game.
The GF finished at a crawl just as it was getting interesting, with players diving like flies. W
And who can forget Tom Symonds effort in the last minute vs the Dogs a few weeks ago. He fell to the ground like he'd been shot for a nothing incident. Now granted he didn't receive a penalty, but it took the momentum out of the game.
Surely the fans don't want this. I certainly don't. Let's remove the desire to dive from the game by ensuring their is no reward.
Now call me biased but I loved SBW getting up to play the ball in consecutive weeks after being smashed in the head by Matt Scott and Sam Burgess. That's what the players should do. It's a gladiatorial sport. It will also even itself out over a season.
