Assessing The NRL's Proposed Rule Changes

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It’s that time of the year again…

The NRL is floating rule changes.

You can read the full article here, but I’ll summarise and offer a few thoughts on all four now that we’ve had some time to simmer on them.

The non-scoring team will now have the option to kick-off or receive the ball to restart play. As it stands, the team which concedes a try or goal restarts play by kicking off.

Variations of this one have been floated for a little while now, and they can float away.

I’ve yet to hear a good reason to introduce this change…

Anybody?

As we consider the scenarios where this can become an issue, I start with the team that scores with two minutes left to cut the deficit to four points. Assuming the team in front asks to receive the ball, the scoring team making a late run is rewarded with the lottery of a short kickoff…

Like the mind-numbing short dropout rule changes, it doesn’t sound like there has been a lot of thought put into anything outside of the initial ‘teams can’t stop momentum’ idea that triggered the idea in the first place.

Coaches will now be able to carry benches of six players but will still be only able to play four per game.

Andrew Abdo added: “Once a fourth player has been used either of the remaining two players may only be used should the circumstances arise from an 18th player to be activated.”

This seems…smart?

Teams already carry 19 players to games, and it makes little sense to keep them out of the game when one might make for an ideal replacement for an early injury.

We will hear about coaches wanting to find “loopholes” in the rules, but what coach is sending a player out to get injured in the first 10 minutes to expose one of these loopholes?

I started writing this shortly after the possible rule changes and have since changed my mind on it. While I support the idea of making the most of benches to avoid games being decided by early HIA failures and serious injuries, it feels like this approach is doing too much.

Bench makeup might not be something the regular footy fan spends a lot of time thinking about, but it’s a major part of the game and impacts results. We’d be removing a key tactical battle by giving coaches every option.

Keeping the bench the same as it is now, but making it easier to activate the 18th man through any act of foul play causing injury, or a failed HIA, solves a lot of the issues while keeping the tactical element and without leaving two players without footy every week.

If an attacking player drops the ball in the act of attempting to score a try over the tryline they will not be penalised by a seven tackle set.

A no-brainer. It should have been the case when the seven-tackle rule was introduced.

No further comment necessary.

Set restarts instead of penalties will be awarded from outside the 20-metre line of the attacking team.

Hang on…

Haven’t we done this before?

Didn’t they change the rules to penalise inside the 40-metre line for a reason?

The change is “designed to speed play up”, but we already know speed ≠ entertainment or good football. The 2021 NRL season is the most boring and predictable I’ve ever covered. The sudden and poorly thought-out six a agin rule puts a permanent asterisk next to every statistic that season.

I recently touched on how coaches will look to make the most of rule changes where there is an advantage.

We saw them do exactly that when the first iteration of the six-again rule was introduced. Again, it was an obvious one from the start and should have been factored in from day one. Conceding six tackles in yardage doesn’t carry nearly the same weight as a full penalty, particularly when the payoff is a slow play the ball and a genuine halt to the momentum an attacking team has in the set.

There is little benefit to this, if any, and proven reasons why it will more than likely backfire. The lack of clarity and justification in the proposal just about sums it up.