I may be a layman,But I can never understand if a guy(who is a good kicker) takes a catch on the full in his in goal,can't if he has the space kick the hell out of the ball to the other end,
If he did wouldn't he be giving the opposition (who would be more likely to catch it) another repeat set to attack, this time from about half way?
Thats half my logic in arguing for 30/50 replacing the 40/20.
As you say the wingers need to drop back opening up the flanks for ball movement from inside a teams 30. I like 30 because if it is 40 that is probably going to reduce ball movement.
I admit at first glance the 20 metre touch finder makes the idea seem too easy. But I think with the wingers back they would be reasonably easy to defend and I also think it would be an awesome skill to see wingers have to develop (hustling to block those kicks).
That said I really like your idea.
The only thing I would suggest is it is obviously very difficult to succeed in achieving a 40 metre touch finder (there were 25 successful attempts all regular season. Thats one every 8 games). How about making it 30 metres???
That threat would be very real.
Well I don't know about the 30/50 20 metre kick -- logistically those wingers are only back about 10 metres behind the defensive line so it's likely harder to place a precision kick in field within that smaller gap. It would most likely be even less frequent to occur than the 40-20.
When the 40-20 works it does so primarily because of kickers taking advantage of the open space and you probably wouldn't get that with a 30-50. Also, if as a result defenses don't believe the kick is a likely threat they won't drop those wingers back to cover it.
The first time I proposed this idea was around 2008 or 2009. In that time the number of 40-20 has decreased. Why? Well recently it's the dead-ball 20m return rule that has stifled kicking from within teams own halves. That's partly why you see those simple dummy runs.
That would change with a General 40 metres -- teams can kick from their own 10 metre line if they want to and be nowhere near the dead ball zone. My main contention though is that it has to be from your own half, go 40 metres and land in the opposition territory - so you couldn't kick from your own goal to your own 40 metre line, so hence 10-50, 20-40, 30-30, 40-20, 50-10 -- I'm not suggesting we call them that -- the General 40 is what I call it.
One of the problems with the 40-20 and for that matter a potential 30-50 is we know the lines where the kicker has to stand behind so the defensive sides can prepare for it.
With a General 40 metre defensive sides can't do that. It can occur anywhere from within an attacking team's own half - basically at any given moment - that's what forces those wingers to drop back because if they don't they run the risk of giving their opposition a free 40 metre advantage.
So like you said at the moment you see 25 successful 40-20 in 2016. A few years ago it was about 50. Under a General 40metre rule I'd estimate you'd see about 200-300 a season - about 1 or 2 a game -- they'd occur mainly when defenses have been ground down and are literally not on the ball.
Teams now have more attacking option - the General 40, the dummy runs and create back play from within the own half. There would be more tries and less wrestling as defensive can't afford to lock 3 or 4 players up in a tackle when they've only got an 11 man line. Obviously you'd see more broken back play and line breaks.
It would just give the game more variety.
The NRL are aware of this proposal, all I want to see them do is trial it during the All Stars. Once they see it tested at pro-level it will be adopted.
