the no punch rule will never be reversed. It's comical that yobos continue to call for it though
The thing is - and ive said this before - make a rule for sin-binning punching was really kind of a non-event. It's miraculous that it worked so well in eliminating it.
Because throwing a punch/fighting, for as long as I remember, was already a more than half chance at a sin-bin. It's crazy that Gallen wasn't binned in that Origin game - maybe there was a period of a few years where things got a bit too lax. But go back a little further to the 90s and even early 2000s, and players were binned almost every game (obviously trailing off in the 2000s).
So the rule "change" maybe made it go from 80% likely to 100% likely you'd be in the bin for punching someone.
The real killer of the biff has been coaches. They simply do not want to risk being down a player and must have cracked down hard on their teams.
But there's a way to bring it back (sort of) without allowing it. If the sin-bin and send-off were actually used for careless or violent play, as intended, then playing 12 on 13 or 12 on 12 becomes a more common occurrence and we see less uptightness about putting one one someones chin who well and truly deserves it. Oh, and the added bonus of periods where the field is slightly more open so some extra attack.
