The season is not far off and I noticed some new Rule Changes announced which sound good. Interesting to see if rule changes will have a bearing on the player selection s and player rotation during the game. Also which team is better tuned in to take advantage early.
For more details on the new rules refer to link here.
https://www.nrl.com/news/2022/02/02/2022-nrl-telstra-premiership-rules/
Replies
Highly unlikely the new rules have any real material impact. The change to penalties instead of six against within 40 metres of the ball carrier's line doesn't change much, and the other couple won't change anything really.
Little concerned over player welfare with referees and officials now being asked to determine how serious a player's injury is. Imagine a player snaps his Achilles but play isn't stopped. Or you end up with another Nene Macdonald situation. But this is also a reflection on the players and coaches who danced around the rules that were introduced for player safety.
The 22 man squad is a good move, but I would really just like a 19 man team. Six man bench, eight interchanges. Just provides so many more options to coaches and could give us some really interesting tactical decisions like soccer. You're up by 2, five minutes to go, use your last interchange on a fresh middle forward to try and keep the middle tight. Down by 4 with a few minutes left, you send on essentially a pinch hitter who is a game breaker. Also a good way to blood debutants. Pressure isn't on them to essentially take up one spot on a four man bench and have to be used.
Hey Super, whilst you say it wont change much, it appears the Eels were one of the top two teams to use the 6 again early in a tackle count in the opposition half to gain a defensive reset.
https://www.news.com.au/sport/nrl/nrl-announces-rule-changes-for-20...
The NRL has cracked down on teams attempting to use the six-again rule for tactical advantage in the biggest rule tweak for 2022.
League officials confirmed another three changes on Wednesday that relate to injury stoppages, free interchanges from foul play and team list protocols.
The amendment to the set-restart rule will stop teams deliberately slowing the ruck early in the set on defence, with any 10m or ruck infringements in an opposition’s 40m zone now resulting in a penalty.
In 2021, the competition’s elite sides were able to exploit the six-again rule – last year’s premiers, the Penrith Panthers, conceded almost 75 per cent of their set restarts in their opposition’s half, which was the highest percentage of any NRL side.
One of the best defensive units in rugby league history, the 2021 Panthers realised that giving away an extra set early in the tackle count while they had territorial advantage posed low risk and would slow down the play-the-ball, buying the side time to reconfigure its defence.
The Parramatta Eels, who finished sixth, employed similar tactics, giving away the second-highest percentage of their set restarts inside their opponent’s half.
Seems it worked very well for the Panthers, and to an extent the Eels. Will have to see if this was an actual tactic and if so, will need to be trained out of the side.
I'm well aware of Parramatta's tactics and those of the top six last season. But I don't think this change is necessarily going to see our defence change that much.
It is still all down to whatever the refs decide. Yes head injuries are a free interchange but the refs will decide what foul play is reportable and what is a send off. I know Matto was knocked out so free interchange but the refs decided Kafusi deliberatly using his elbow to knock Matto's head off was only a reportable offence and not a send off when he should of got sent off and 12 weeks.
Like I said, They can change all the rules they like but ultimatly the refs will make whatever call suits them.
We needed rule changes because of the rule changes FFS.
When will they learn?
The game is influenced exponentially by the media and advertising. The game is a rort.
Another year, more rule changes and less content fans.
I actually hope that the eels dissolve and I can't then follow this shitgame...
I do like the idea of having different types of "penalty tools" which are proportionate to the infringement.I accept there is a lot of room for criticism with the refs management/Bias? in those situations. What I don,t like is penalties being the same for very minor infringements and major infringements eg 10 minute sin bin for a minor Accidental? infringement.. Some are accidental and others are deliberate. eg An attendant running on the field and calling for a dubious stoppage at a critical time of play.
Agree doesn't really address the problem, repeatedly breaking the rules and slowing down the ruck is the single biggest problem in the game, no point in warning teams they ignore the refs, solution is a 5 minute sin bin and done early in the piece not after 4 or 5 warnings..
Good blog, TAD.
The thing is, if a defence is in dissarry and danger it's going to prefer a penalty and a defensive reset over points conceded. Always been the case before the PLV set restart "speeding the game up" rule changes.
To crack down on this, PLV bootstamp style - I'm curious to see whether we'll see a penalty-a-thon at some stage, or early on, to get the message across (or even employ professional foul sin bins) - with refs being directed to do so.
So, we're kind of returning to the past a bit here with the old fashioned penalty. This all reminds me fashion fads that come and go and return and go again, that I can barely keep up with.
Still, kudos to PLV, ARLC, NRL for trying to improve the game - although it's biased heavily in favour of attacks.
PLV obviously sees a better product (thus better TV deals) with more tries being scored. According to, Rugby League Eye Test tries went up by 11% from 2020 which is a good thing I suppose. What PLV wanted worked. Overall, fans are happy and that probably is the most critical element.
But there are downsides and consequences.
One, has been a massive increase in the thing is lopsided scorelines specially in the second half as defences tire. There has been around around a 25% increase in the gap from 2020 (in a single year that's a lot) which is 2.5 times more than the 11% overall increase in tries. So, this highlights a relative over-distribution of tries to the team winning and top-tier that reap the benefits of blowouts.
Thus, a factor and/or symptom of the increasing gap between the top teams - haves and have nots.
Some traditionalists prefer a better balance between defence and attack and tighter scorelines. And we saw in the finals tighter scorelines make for just as exciting or more exciting viewing.
Naturally, as a fan you like your own team demolishing another even if there is little defence. It is highly pleasurable. But it hardly gets you on the edge of your seat about to have a heart attack. Still, PLV has stated early on the season, publicly, more tries despite lopsided scores is the way to go. And he's the boss.
Also, despite the promise of the game getting faster by set restarts time in play went down from 2020 where "the average time in play dropped by nearly two minutes, from 55.9 minutes of play down to an average of 54.1".
To me, this suggests the six again though giving the appearance of speeding up the game, and doing so by itself, and in the eyes of the public, other factors undermined it during the season. Some of that could be argued teams did whatever they could to slow the game with refs responding to that, as well as more bunker reviews - and it worked - coupled with what seemed like an increase in injuries - some serious and some appearing potentially more gamesmanship.C
How would an increase in penalties help increase of time in play? Can't see it per se. But, other factors may be at play in 2022 to offset it. Anyway, this is more a statistical relevance. Perhaps, not something fans would notice or agree with in view of set restarts and commonly accepted notion the game is speeding up.
Wrestling is another part of that rabbit hole that fans always seem to grumble about and blame the Storm that comes when the tide turned very much so in favour of defences in the recent past. Did we see less? Perhaps. I didn't hear as much grumbling in 2021 as opposed to previous seasons? What do you think?
I still think more rules re depth and dispensations might be necessary, as the effects of Covid are as yet unpredictable with rumours 80% of NRL players having Covid.
Overall, fans though grumpy about somethings - like PLV, ref and judiciary consistency, bunkers, and things like the 1 November trading windows a year out from completion - most seem happier with the massive changes to the rules under PLV. So, kudos, despite all the obstacles and challenges.
The irony of tries going up is that it actually causes more stoppages.
And I don't necessarily think more tries is a good thing. As demonstrated in the data, the majority of those additional tries were scored by the good sides blowing the bad sides out of the water.
The try-scoring gap between the top and bottom teams is increasing substantially over the last 9 years. In 2022 there is around 50% difference in average tries scored per game between the top 6 versus bottom 6 teams.
Not sure, we've seen anything quite like this disparity before.
Storm and Souths had an average of 33.96pg and 32.29pg (5.8 and 5.3 tries pg) respectively - higher than record-breaking 2001 Eels' outfit at 32.27pg (5.46 tries pg). Manly was not far off at 31pg (5.3 tries pg).
Souths, Roosters, Manly, Storm had averages between 4.7- 5.8 tries pg - all higher than the previous record of 4.6pg over the last 9 years.
What's also intriguing is the pattern seemed to begin in 2019 - prior to set restarts. Perhaps it was a co-incidence? Or perhaps set restarts just put the cycle into over-drive?
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