Ordering defenders to release the ball carrier as soon as the referee has called "held", decreasing the number of interchanges and introducing stronger deterrents for lifting tackles are among the options being considered to maintain a balance between attack and defence and ensure player safety as the NRL attempts to influence how the game evolves over the next decade.
For the first time in the code's history, NRL officials have collated data demonstrating changes since 2004 and projecting what the game may look like in 2024 to determine if intervention is needed to alter trends that have led to a reduction in the number of tries, line breaks and off-loads against defences that have become more structured in the professional era.
The information was presented to the NRL competition committee on Tuesday before being dissected over two days by its 15 members, including Wayne Bennett, Tim Sheens, John Lang, Trent Robinson, Daniel Anderson, Laurie Daley, Darren Lockyer, Michael Buettner, Mark O'Neill and Tony Archer.
While all agreed the game is in good shape, Bennett pointed out at the meeting that not only had tries decreased from an average of 8.4 per game in 2004 to 7.3 this season and line breaks fallen even more significantly but there were some matches that featured no line breaks and the only tries were scored from kicks or a player barging over close to the line.
If left unchecked, it is predicted that tries per game could drop to 5.7 and line breaks to 5.4 within a decade.
"The last 10 years have been shaped without our input; it has just happened because we allowed it to happen," NRL head of football Todd Greenberg said. "In the next 10 years we have got to make sure that if we want certain outcomes, we make certain decisions to shape those outcomes."
The reasons identified for the shift towards defence were the more than doubling of the time – from 13 hours a week to 30 – that players now trained, technological advances, an increase in coaching staff from nine to 23 at some clubs and the increased size, strength and fitness of players, who are now full-time athletes.
A lock, who weighed 96 kilograms in 2004, is expected to be 107 kilograms in 2024, while the average weight of a fullback is forecast to increase from 84 kilograms to 96 kilograms over the same period and utility players to bulk up from 94 kilograms to 106 kilograms.
"In that 10-year period [since 2004], every club has gone forward big time and the salary cap has gone up dramatically, so every club has got the ability to spend and pay more money, and you can see the difference with the staffing and the access to facilities that players now have," Sheens said.
No decisions were made at the conference but Greenberg and his staff will now look more closely at the following key areas:
Ruck Speed
With the statistics presented to the meeting showing that fast play-the-balls had decreased from 22 per cent of tackles in 2004 to 14 per cent this season and slow play the balls were up from just 4 per cent to 10 per cent, it was suggested that referees should call "held" quicker and defenders release the ball carrier immediately rather than peel off him as they are now allowed to do.
"I think everybody probably agrees that we need to speed up the play-the-ball to give more opportunities for ad lib play," Lang said. "But it is not just the slowing down of the play-the-ball, it is actually the slowing down before they get to the ground, it is the holding them up. That is not part of the speed of the play-the-ball."
However, another statistic showing that dummy half running had decreased from an average of 54 a game in 2004 to 21 this season prompted Daley to caution against any "radical decisions" without proper consideration of the consequences.
"What that suggests is that players are running from dummy half more to try and catch people offside, so if you quicken the game up you might find it goes back to a lot of dummy half running," he said.
Interchange
The number of interchanges in 2004 was 12 compared with 10 now, but with players being fitter it is widely believed that a further reduction would help teams to unlock tiring defences and favour smaller playmakers.
"As the players get fitter, we need to make sure we continue to innovate so that fatigue plays a part in the modern game," Greenberg said.
Daley added: "If we keep going down the same path it rules out a lot of people playing our game, so I think you are better off to just decrease the interchange and that might open it up more".
Wrestling
A record 28 players were charged with wrestling offences this season and there are now an average of 12.5 (mostly legal) lifting tackles a match as defenders try to ensure the ball carrier is put on his back so he cannot play the ball quickly.
With three-man tackles now making up 35 per cent of all tackles and that ratio predicted to increase to one in two tackles, there are concerns about player safety as well as the decrease in scoring opportunities.
"In days gone by, defensive training used to comprise of tackling bags, a few tyre tubes and things like that, but the game has evolved to the point where players now spend an inordinate amount of hours working on defence and I mean defence, not tackling," Sheens said. "As well as the tackle and the wrestle and whatever, they can work as a group on the defence itself."
Lang said the players were too well versed at wrestling to eradicate it completely but dangerous tackles needed to be stamped out.
"Nobody does it on purpose but now they can't do the cannonball, some of the clubs are going in and picking one leg up and that has probably increased the potential for things to go wrong," he said.
Replies
I would like to see more emphasis on attack so I hope some of these changes come about. It would certainly favour us in the context of Phil's "playing lighter" blog earlier this week.
barring a couple of players at either end of the scale parra could be one of the few teams with the same size player in a lot of positions. our outside backs are just as big as our back rowers.
I would like to see a reduction in both the size of the bench & the number of interchanges with a no recycle rule. This would allow the smaller players to become more involved & have more impact in opening the game up in the latter part of the match.
Interestingly there is no mention of the scrum being reviewed.
Personally I think we need an increase in the size of the bench.8 players would be good. If we were to increase it, potentially what you could have is the smaller players coming back into the game. They can be brought on for the final 15 minutes to try and blow open a game with their speed, and agility but then this could also work against them because of their size they'd be a huge target in defence. This also is in case of injury. With only 4 bench players allowed at the moment it is very hard to carry an extra hooker on the bench. Imagine if a back was injured instead of shifting a forward out to centre we could have someone who is equally as capable of playing there? I agree with no interchange rule. Once you're off, you're off for the game.
There's no talk about scrums changing because scrum penalties are boring and useless. How many times do we have to re-pack the scrum as it is because a player doesn't have their head in the right position according to the ref? Plus as to my knowledge, the rule on scrums haven't changed just the way the players bend the rules. They still feed it into the front-row, they can't break until the ball has passed the second-row, and they're still allowed to push as long as they're abiding by the rules.
One ref is the way to go and two Refs has not improved our game. The four nations was a case in point and the English ref was no nonsense but as we see in the NRL our refs continue to allow captains to waste time and talk back to them. The english ref was great I thought.
Simple - once ALL forward progress is stopped the ref calls "Held" - regardless of whether the player has been put on the ground.
Inglis is allowed this treatment as is a couple of other guys who are hard to put down - just apply the rule across the board.
Result - Less wrestle - less holding the player off the ground to slow the play the ball and set a defensive line.
It will force players to revert to REAL defence instead of slowing tactics.
Oh - and when the ref calls "release" then either release or get penalised.
Now when the "release" call is given the defence continue to hang on and harass the attacking player.
If you want to stop 3 man tackles, simply call "held" as soon as the 3rd man makes contact. Will stop most lifting tackles
Why not go back to the future. Back when we had reserve grade, you could sit as many under 23 players (from the previous game) on the bench as you like but you could only use 2. Then for first grade the coach would pick a group of guys who played well in reserve grade and sit them on the bench as a reward but again you could only use 2 reserves. This system worked well for years. I also liked the 13 import rule where you could pay whatever you wanted but every club could only have 13 non local players spread over the 3 teams: under 23's, reserve grade and first grade. The game flourished under these rules and many people would turn up early to watch all 3 grades. If the argument is that running reserve grade costs too much, get rid of 50% of the upper management at NRL Headquarters to pay for it. Just like Government, big management equals tears for all and everyone drowning in legislation/rules to justify their positions. I am tired of waking up to 30 new pieces of legislation every day and our game is going that way as well. It is a simple game made complicated by minority views. Want the shoulder charge back? Every player signs a waiver stating that they ackowledge it is a contact sport and they may get injured. If its a high tackle then penalty/send off as appropriate.
Hi Brett, I agree that Ham's viewpoint on the size of the bench makes sense to cover for potential injuries but I also think the number of interchanges needs to be reduced with a no recycle regime.
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