unapologetic pedant

The phrase "Odds and Sods" is a synonym of "Bits and Bobs". Nowadays voters across the Western world are participants in a parlour game, trying to work out who are the odds and who are the sods.

Ever met Turdeau?

I would say the exact opposite is true in relation to obstruction. Mainly due to the effects of Video Refs searching for possible offences. Thereby expanding the remit for obstruction penalties. Players hit the deck when they think there might have been an obstruction. It's become too risky to play on. We used to allow the ball-carrier to come back the other way when there was doubt. Now they have to stop entirely.

Men's SL and NRLW are refereed to the same written criterion i.e. "genuine attempt". With palpably diverging outcomes. Refs occasionally let incorrect PTBs go in NRLW games. Doesn't lead to a general degeneration in standards. Only logical explanation is cultural decay in English RL. I previously adduced the difficulties with supply teachers. Another related analogy from wider society is "policing by consent".

I agree with this specific point about the "bad look", but it doesn't help the rest of your argument. Many occasions when a ball-carrier gives themselves up, there was no obstruction. Just that the player can't trust the ref not to call a penalty. Better to burn one play rather than risk turning the ball over. We went exhaustively through this after the first Tonga test. It is not automatically illegal to run behind your own player.

Blue Monday owes a fair bit to the Donna Summer track Our Love. Don't think anyone's ever been sued for general pastiche. Could argue ELO built a whole career on I Am The Walrus. Some more obscure examples - Acqua Fragile - Quite good 70s Italian prog band marred by Peter Gabriel soundalike English language vocals. All the best RPI bands sung in Italian. The Essence - 80s Dutch band straying into The Cure tribute act territory. Ashrae Fax - Ethereal American band straying into Cocteau Twins tribute act territory. Velveteen - Contemporary English Shoegaze revivalists. Their album Empty Crush plays like a run-through of My Bloody Valentine's Loveless. Thus Love - American Post-Punk Transgender trio. Brilliant debut album. My favourite of last year. Singer impersonating Peter Murphy. Mind you, Peter Murphy was impersonating David Bowie.

SH tour would be great. Probably same limbo for England as open-age. Too good for anyone in NH, not good enough for Oz and NZ. Nothing comparable in UK approaching the standard of under-19s Origin. Australian under-18s schoolgirls played a game in PNG this year and one in Fiji last year. Maybe they could tour over here as per Australian schoolboys.

This "hands on the ball-by-ball carriers" phrase appears in the RFL article covering the "new" interpretations. No wonder we can't spread the game abroad. Bad enough for native English speakers. God help aspiring Greek or Serbian refs trying to translate and make sense of our rules. Does anybody at the RFL check a text before it goes up on their site? And why do journalists just regurgitate verbatim such obvious gobbledygook?

On the RFL website preview, it says the game is "available on the Our League mobile app". Any significance in that?

I would recommend Bernard Levin's famous "Quoting Shakespeare" composition, wherein he attempts to show how often English speakers are unconsciously quoting Shakespeare in everyday speech. A companion catalogue of common idioms could be crafted from that other rich source, the King James Bible.

In general, neither do I. Likewise, the head of a school is ultimately responsible for hapless supply teachers. However, in the midst of our PTB debacle, there have been instances where refs penalize a player who slightly stumbles whilst playing the ball correctly. Then on the next play, they let an opponent chuck the ball through their legs. I'd like to think officials would be keen to avoid such flagrant injustice.

Should remember there's some allowance for momentum in the tackle from the moment the ball or ball-carrying arm reaches the ground. None of the Rovers tackles were clear flops. The involvement of the suspect tackler in each case is simultaneous with completion. The Leigh one could have been a set restart. Even this would have been harsh since the ball-carrier was still moving when the second tackler came in. The evidence has to be conclusive for the ref to penalize. When it's close, the ref calls the player out if he deems it late. BTW, unless I'm seeing things the Rovers 17 was 37.

Our refs are like supply teachers who lose control of the class. If they let one child misbehave, they have no moral authority to stop others misbehaving.

Don't forget "and cannot part with the ball". We see few enough offloads already. Premature "Held" calls by refs failing to read the tackle will suppress that number further. Bear in mind too that the momentum line was written at a time when the offside rule was 5m, often closer de facto to 2 or 3m. Cheap metres from quick PTBs were not as readily available as now.

The tackle is complete when the ball or ball-carrying arm touches the ground or when the ref calls "Held". The only one of these criteria that affords scope for interpretation is the "Held" call. Your previous post said "join a tackle on the floor". I'd need to see an example to know what you mean by adding weight to a completed tackle on the floor. Prima facie, sounds like a clear flop.