The NRL is considering a radical proposal for players who concede penalties in their own red zone to be given a time out.
NRL boss Todd Greenberg revealed the game's rule makers were considering a controversial tweak designed to curb the trend of players giving away deliberate penalties close to their own tryline.
Some sides have been accused of giving away calculated penalties in an effort to coax the opposition into kicking a penalty goal rather than going for a try.
Under the proposal, any player who gives away a penalty within the 20 metre zone would be forced to stand behind the goalposts for the following set.
According to Fox Sports Stats, the number of red zone penalties has increased this year with 701 of the 2525 penalties (28 per cent) being incurred in the offending side's red zone.
This is up on the numbers from the same time last year when 650 of the 2682 (24 per cent) penalties came in the red zone.
The rule was recently debated by the powerful competition committee and will come up when it meets again later in the year, with a view to possibly implementing it in 2018.
"That was talked about at the competition committee recently and I expect that will create some more discussion at the November meeting," Greenberg said.
"I'd say this, I think we've passed more than 40 sin bin offences in this season. That's more than double what we did last year.
"That was on the back of the coaches and the competition committee making a more considered response for foul play."
According to Fox Sports Stats, Newcastle (2.4 per game) gave away the most red zone penalties in 2017 followed by Cronulla (2.2) and Canterbury (2.1) with St George Illawarra, Brisbane and Wests Tigers (1.3) the best behaved in that respect.
The proposal does look set to be met with some opposition with Sydney Roosters and NSW captain Boyd Cordner saying it was too hard to discern between deliberate and accidental penalties and the rule could unjustly affect some teams at key moments.
"I'm not a fan of that," Cordner said.
"Personally, I don't think it should be implemented.
"It's hard to determine whether they're doing it on purpose, that's the hardest thing, how they will determine that."
Replies
I think it's good. It should be used for repeat infringements. You get penalised and warned, you do it again you go to the naughty corner.
If it's used right I think it's a good thing, however in all of these things, it will be how it is utilised that will be the most important thing.
They have been doing it for years and if Melbourne are to blame for wrestling then the Roosters are to blame for this
Bill harrigan has been calling for it pretty much all year when he's bern calling games on the radio
Yeh Andrew Voss retweeted that one on Twitter. I like the sound of that. Teams would be less likely to commit the fouls if they'd be conceding points and forced to continuously defend their own line.
Won't it just turn League into Yawnion with a penalty goal taken anywhere inside the 50m?
This would be a difficult rule for the refs to objectively apply
I think that it will create more room for error. The referees have a hard enough job as it is
Yay more rules for them to get wrong.
We don't need more, we need less.
But in the general scheme of things I certainly think that the administrators have larger issues to deal with when we already have the sin bin available
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