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There's not, but (sadly) in the NRL, rarely will a referee not re-set a scrum if the ball should suddenly emerge from the non-feeding team's side of the scrum. One of the other trends that has emerged in the NRL is that the defending pack ('pack' being a misnomer) does not even bind to each other - allowing them to break away quicker and negate any opposition attack - another reason attacking teams simply opt for the free 10m on offer from the five-eigth (well, a 2nd rower standing at five-eighth). Roy Masters wrote an interesting article on scrums earlier this year: "Purists rejoice at the exciting return of scrum moves" A positive evolution of the scrum 'contest' arose in Rd 3 (Raiders v Eels) of 2009, but was nullified by a video referee disallowing it...

Oh for the days when English RL actually had dominant influence over the direction of the game's rules and the style of game that delivered - one suited to natural and instinctive footballing skill over athleticism and set plays. I can't see how England will ever catch the Kangaroos & the NRL-bred Kiwis whilever the game's rules encourage athleticism over talent. The same for every other aspiring RL nation. Everyone in RL across the globe is playing (and struggling) by RL rules evolved to suit the needs of the NRL athletes game. Why does RL put this 'athleticism' requirement (via the game's rules) onto every current and prospective RL player? It doesn't help tp expand the game, nor does it engender competitiveness (unless you call 2 teams struggling for 80 minutes as 'competition'). The RFL needs to be exercising greater influence at the rules table, and pushing for changes that suit your footballers' attributes. Not saying that will be easy to achieve, nor that the Aussie and Kiwis players aren't talented (they obviously are), but by getting the 'athleticism' angle reduced, it becomes more of a fair fight on the playing field. A competitive and winning England side is the best means for RL to gain wider media.

Understand what you're alluding too & agree 100% with the point your making. It's probably more the case that RU is seeking out Touch rather than the other way around. It's obvious to (almost) everyone that much sport in the 21st century will be in a stream-lined form, and yet while RL evolves down the path of being only a game that fulltime athletes can play, it does nothing (in Aust & NZ at least) to ensure mod/social forms of its game are kept on board. It's too late anyway - the Touch associations want nothing to do with RL, so RL would have to create yet another variant and this time keep it in the RL brand.

The reference to "South Sydney rugby" players is RL players. In his book, "The Story of Touch", Bob Dyke (one of the Souths men) points to the playing of touch in front of a 47,000 SCG Grand Final (replay) crowd in 1977, along with a spectacular match a year later between the visiting British Lions RL team and a "Sydney Metropolitan" rep touch team, as the primary impetus for the rapid growth of touch footy in the late 1970s. Significantly, Dyke also makes the point that touch football's founding purpose was to widen and grow the social and recreational appeal of rugby league. Touch football was being played in Australia at least 15 years before the Souths initiative. Anyone who suggests touch isn't a modified form of RL is kidding themselves. The problem for RL is that in the 1980s the game (RL) in Aust failed to recognise that touch was becoming a legitimate and very popular sport in itself, and the opportunity to affiliate new Touch associations into the RL bodies was rejected and/or ignored. So Touch went it alone, and who can blame them now for seeing themselves as an independent sport. Touch is popular in non-RL states in Australia, but it does little for awareness of the RL brand. It is the same around the world, apart where the RFL is doing some good work recently organising tournaments under its banner etc. Read longer history of RL and touch here: www.RL1908.com/History/touch-football.htm None of the above is to suggest that some obscure informal touch RU didn't exist elsewhere (in NZ & SA) in the 1960s and earlier, but there is no doubt that the sport of touch football that has been taken up across the globe (including by the RFU & IRB) is RL. Dyke's objective that touch be used as a vehicle for the expansion of RL has obviously failed as few understand the game they are playing is RL. I also wrote a longer article re the question "Is touch footy rugby league?" In the cross code media and public pereceptions war, rugby league seems to be lagging behind in growth and participant numbers at the adult level, yet, how hard is it to merely point out how many are playing touch footy? And given the physical demands placed on social players under a 10m in RL, the number opting to get their "RL fix" via playing it in the form of touch or OzTag instead, in our modern time poor world, is only going to grow.

They do if you have your opponent in "retreating defence" mode - something that eventuates from the earlier scoots and hit-ups wearing down the wall. Let's not forget that the 10m rule also demands that the blight of wrestling be a prominent part of modern RL too.

Fairly sure that was my question - glad to see Alex's views. The back and forth of the 10m over 80 minutes generates a lot of wasted energy, for no particular purpose - it requires an enormous amount of training just to be fit enough to play, and stops many amateurs from taking up the game. Nothing happens in a game of RL until the defence and attack actually meet - no attacker can "put a move" on a defender until they have come into close proximity, so the defence might as well be 5m back instead of 10m. The most repugnant aspect of it all is that the defence is punished every time it does its job! Successfully make a tackle, your team is "rewarded" by being sent back 10m. The logic behind the 10m rule was it would create space (nothing about speed) for the attack to do something with the ball. Fifteen years on, the majority of runs in RL are now dummy-half scoots or one of the ruck "hit ups", all aimed at eating up the free 10m the attack has been gifted for being tackled on the preceding play, and tiring your opponent (so you can glory in scoring tries against a tired defence). Ironically, RL already had a decent and equitable 10m rule - it required BOTH teams to be 5m from the ruck (something that could have worked well under a 2 referees system). The 10m rule pushes genuine footballers out of the game in favour of fitter athletes, but less skilled "footballers". If anything, I would have thought it was the England team that had more to be gained by a return (or trial) of the 5m rule. The space that should have been opened up on the field should not have been between the two teams (ie the 10m rule), but across the field (11 a-side under a 5m rule).

A 1932 Aust report on "league" that was headlined as "rugby" and went so far as to use the "rugger" word...

Was all "rugby" until the early 1970s. Before WW2 there was just "professional rugby" and "amateur rugby". If/when distinction was required in conversation or print, then "league" or "union" was used on its own or it was RL or RU. In the 1970s the NSWRL changed its match program from "Rugby League News" to "Big League", and the Ch7 tv coverage was called "Seven's Big League". I must say that I side with Paley's views on this one re RL in Australia. I tried to get this issue prominence in 2003 when the R(U)WC was on here, but very few in RL here (media, fans, officials) care about it at all - they simply don't see it is a problem for the code. Sure there's an element of impact from RU's push to be seen just as "rugby", but to be frank, most of the way the code formerly known as "rugby league" - but now known as "league" - is referred to here is entirely of our own doing. I've written articles for major magazines and newspapers here over the past decade and NOT ONCE has an editor re-edited my work to change "rugby union" to "rugby", or "rugby league" to "league". It's all a sad reflection of the RL community here still - after 15 years - still not come to the realisation that there are now 3 other professional football codes in NSW/QLD competing with RL. A similar example exists with the salary cap - a tool implemented in the early 1990s when RL had no external competitors, and hopelessly inappropriate for the world RL exists in today.