Magic Superbeetle

I think the rules agree with the my argument and stance taken by the referees entirely? Firstly, you can have multiple attempts to effect a tackle. Hence each action in a sequence should be taken as that; a sequence. The first attempted effected tackle hits the shoulder, causes Yaha to be falling to his knees. The second sequence is then the arm making contact to the head. Unless your arguing that Makinsons tackle was one continuous motion where contact was always going to be made with the head? The rules don't just expect Makinson to disappear, else virtually every piece of unfair play 1:1 would be presented as a penalty try. It precisely asks the question; if the defending team did anything else other than the unfair play (high tackle in this instance) would a try have been scored? As I say, if Yaha had already been over the line, theres far more of an argument/ 50:50 on this, but we just cant definitively say what would have happened. Interestingly, I have to ask, do you think Saints should have gotten a penalty try for Maloneys shoulder charge on Batchelor?

Except if Yaha was headless, the body was still angled towards the sideline and falling to his knees. Naiqama (cropped from the picture due to size limitations) is around 10m away, and your effectively betting that Yaha has enough momentum to stop himself going towards the sideline, and regain his feet to get to the line before Makinson recovers/ Naiqama joins the tackle. I just cant see how anyone can say that definitively, except wanting the underdog to win.

You know definitively from this position that if Makinson doesn’t touch his head Yaha is going to score? Really?

You don’t assess a penalty try as “would Yaha have scored if Makinson wasn’t there” but as “if Makinson hadn’t made contact with the head, would Yaha have scored”. the first part of the contact was perfectly legal. So the what if conversation starts from the contact with the head, at which point Yaha has 5m out, falling to his knees and moving towards the side line and for a penalty try to be given that from that moment onwards he would definitely have scored. That’s not ludicrous that’s how the rules work…

I just don’t understand how the Yaha no try could be considered 50:50? Makinson makes initial contact on the shoulder and Yaha is already going to ground 5+m out - we have no idea if the initial contact was enough to cause Yaha to fall short, be pushed out anyway, let the cover defence come over etc. If he was over the line already, I could perhaps see it as a 50:50 (he might still have dropped it etc) but where it was? You will get no try and a penalty 100 times out of 100 (the thing which may vary is the card). It’s quite funny really because no one made any mention of Saints not getting a penalty try in MW when Joe Batchelor was shoulder charged by Maloney in the act of scoring which meant he dropped the ball, which was far more 50:50 in my opinion. The Tomkins decision was just right. There’s not much more to say really. The refs have been penalising players all year for flopping to the ground after playing the ball and there was nothing special or different about this one other than there were 2 minutes left in the grand final. It would be more interesting if he hadn’t have played the ball as he would probably have gotten back to 6, but since he did, it was the right decision. If your sending Mata’utia off, your also sending Maloney off for the initial elbow which caused the shuffle, but that’s old ground at this point. Absolutely agree the Coote pat back was wrong - fortunately no big moment came from it. Also if the game was reffed to the standards the semi final was vs Leeds, then both Kasiano and Garcia would have been sin binned for their respective high shots on on Roby and Lomax. And there was a more than strong argument for an 8 point try for Saints with Yaha going in knees first on Naiqamas head to stop the try. But they’re swings and roundabouts and all of them even out over the course of the game, because as you say, there was no bias in the reffing.

So the “quota” that was linked in the rules was deprecated as I think there were concerns that it wouldn’t hold up to legal challenge. It is, after all, illegal to discriminate somebody from a job on the grounds of their nationality. There’s no reference in the 2019 operational rules which were the last ones published that I can see (https://www.rugby-league.com/flipbooks/2019-operational-rules-tiers-1-3/mobile/index.html#p=44) Instead, non-federation trained rules were brought into place. The idea being that if a player under the age of 21 spends 3 years in an academy* run by a member of RLEF, they gain a “qualification”, and clubs can sign up to 7 players without said qualification. This captures all the kolpak loopholes/ European passport loopholes also, so is more consistent. *there are other ways for the RFL to grant qualification, either for players who take unusual routes to professional sport, like Alex Walmsley, who came through the community game, or people they just want playing in the competition (like Gareth Widdop). There are also means for the RFL to grant “temporary” qualifications, mostly when clubs go bust and puts players are risk, because whilst the non fed rules are better than the old quota, it’s still no where near water tight legally so it’s a round about way of keeping everyone happy. Usually the temporary qualifications last for the time the player spends at their next club. I think most clubs run with 7 as a reasonable number. It’s not as simple as just cutting the number down to say 3, as all that would achieve is inflating the price of quality federation trained players and lower quality of squads as more junior players will be needed to fill the gaps, who wouldn’t have otherwise been considered good enough. Instead it would be much more effective to make the clubs have a minimum spend on their academy squad relative to their Salary cap spend (spend the max on the salary cap should come with conditions of serious investment in youth). Then teams would be less dependent on non federation players and we could bring the number down because they’re not needed. My club, Saints, will be running with the full 7 next year, and each add something to the squad overall. Will Hopoate, Sione Mata’utia, Curtis Sironen, Joey Lussick, Iggy Paasi, Jamie Bell, Konrad Hurrell

No Leeds just had a nice rest in June instead so they didnt have to play us again ...

You must of missed Saints missing their first choice half backs as well then? I think I saw Leeds were missing 8? Saints were missing 5, so it’s hardly like they were worlds apparent from a missing players perspective. Was disappointed not to see Dan Norman tonight. Would have been a good chance to see what he’s about whilst we had 2 props out.

If you dont think Woolf has improved Saints, I dont think you have been paying attention. Under Holbrook we played a lot of nice, attacking rugby but we were prone to an epic choke in almost every major game we played. We barely scraped by Halifax in a semi, completely lost it against Warrington at Wembley, and whilst we got the duck off our back against Salford in the 2019 GF, I think we still struggled to see the game off. I would go so far as to say a Holbrook team would have lost last years Grand Final. Had we lost that game, we could have ended up with the flat track bullies tag. Woolf has added a serious amount of steel and fortitude to our game. Its not the pretty side of the game, but Saints fans can go into big games confident because of it. I also think our supposed "boring" attack is somewhat overblown, it may not have been as slick as it was under Holbrook, but we have had the same backs pretty consistently for 5 years now, most teams have learned how to defend against us (though stopping the tries is another thing altogether). Over the last couple of weeks we have been alot more unpredictable with Welsby and Dodd and have looked a lot slicker for it - its a good time for us to have a shake up this year. As for Hurrell - he has a decision, put the effort in, be the game changer everyone knows he can be, and impress his international coach in the process, or Mata'utia, Sironen (as has just been announced), and Batchelor all start in front of him, with Wingfield and Forster not far behind. Thats not a bad position to be in.

This. Hurrell has signed for Saints next year, with the intention of him playing in the second row. He either gets fit and gets in the team, or Batchelor keeps his place, and we convince a Koukash rich Leigh he would be a great signing for 2023. 4 senior second rowers in the team, good for competition with Wingfield and Forster putting more pressure on below. Oh, and I think Baxter will come through as a prop eventually.

Hopoate and Percival will be our starting centres next year so it’s either that or we have signed him to play reserves. we’re losing 2 back rowers (Bentley and Thompson) and only signing 1 (BMM/Sironen/Martin/JSL/Bell depending on which rumours you believe) so it adds up, and quite a few journos on Twitter (such as John Davidson) have said it as well. I can only guess Woolf has a plan…

Edit: double post

You do realise he won Bulldogs player of the year in 2019? https://www.bulldogs.com.au/news/2019/09/12/hopoate-claims-dr-george-peponis-bulldogs-player-of-the-year/ there’s no denying he’s not performed this year but there are 100s of reasons why that might be. It feels like a classic things have just gone stale for him and a new environment will do him the world of good - especially as he’s worked with Woolf before (something he emphasised in his Saints interview). If Woolf can get the best out of him, he’s going to be very good for us and probably somewhere between Naiqama 2018 and Naiqama 2021 (and closer to the former). It’s just not seen as “exciting” as it’s an incremental improvement compared to the revolution Naiqama was for us. Saints also need a bit of utility in our signings this year as a safety net for Welsby and Simm, and in Hopoate and Lussick we seem to have done that whilst still adding to the team, which is great recruitment all round. Just a prop and a backrower to go after that!

I think Saints have concerns over Smiths long term health with head injuries. He’s started wearing a head guard this year but still rarely featured. Can see him leaving in the next year or so as he’s struggled to develop with constant head knocks. Similarly I’d be surprised if Eaves signs a new contract, he’s just not had the opportunity and Pemberton (our current 19s hooker) will be the next one off the bus… If Roby continues next year we will probably see; 2022: 9 Roby, 14 Lussick 2023: 9 Lussick, 14 Pemberton

Dufty has been linked with Saints to replace Coote who is rumoured to be home sick but not sure how much is in it … https://www.seriousaboutrl.com/nrl-livewire-offered-to-super-league-with-one-club-in-pole-position-40045/

I got bored, so looked up the 2018, 2019 and 2020 table and tabulated - I can only be bothered to do Saints and Wigan since they both finished 1 and 2 all three seasons. <!DOCTYPE html> <html> <body> <table style="width:100%"> <tr> <th></th> <th>Year</th> <th>Team</th> <th>Played</th> <th>Won</th> <th>Drawn</th> <th>Lost</th> <th>Points For</th> <th>Points Against</th> <th>Points Difference</th> <th>Points</th> </tr> <tr> <td>Before 2017</td> <td>Saints</td> <td>599</td> <td>416</td> <td>15</td> <td>168</td> <td>18329</td> <td>11795</td> <td>6534</td> <td>845</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Before 2017</td> <td>Wigan</td> <td>599</td> <td>398</td> <td>24</td> <td>177</td> <td>17348</td> <td>10928</td> <td>6420</td> <td>814</td> </tr> <tr> <td>2018</td> <td>Saints</td> <td>23</td> <td>21</td> <td>0</td> <td>2</td> <td>713</td> <td>298</td> <td>415</td> <td>42</td> </tr> <tr> <td>2018</td> <td>Wigan</td> <td>23</td> <td>16</td> <td>0</td> <td>7</td> <td>573</td> <td>345</td> <td>228</td> <td>32</td> </tr> <tr> <td>2019</td> <td>Saints</td> <td>29</td> <td>26</td> <td>0</td> <td>3</td> <td>916</td> <td>395</td> <td>521</td> <td>52</td> </tr> <tr> <td>2019</td> <td>Wigan</td> <td>29</td> <td>18</td> <td>0</td> <td>11</td> <td>699</td> <td>539</td> <td>160</td> <td>36</td> </tr> <tr> <td>2020</td> <td>Saints</td> <td>18</td> <td>13</td> <td>0</td> <td>5</td> <td>477</td> <td>199</td> <td>278</td> <td>26</td> </tr> <tr> <td>2020</td> <td>Wigan</td> <td>18</td> <td>13</td> <td>0</td> <td>5</td> <td>412</td> <td>286</td> <td>126</td> <td>26</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Overall</td> <td>Saints</td> <td>669</td> <td>476</td> <td>15</td> <td>178</td> <td>20435</td> <td>12687</td> <td>7748</td> <td>965</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Overall</td> <td>Wigan</td> <td>669</td> <td>445</td> <td>24</td> <td>200</td> <td>19032</td> <td>12098</td> <td>6934</td> <td>908</td> </tr> </table> </body> </html>