7 tackle rule - why?

[Dave T]

Just watching the Wire game and after the no try from Westerman where he was tackled dead before putting the ball down - Cas get a 7 tackle set - why is this?

Wasnt the rationale for this rule to avoid negative kicks going dead?

I noticed it in tge world club game last week when Ben Hunt did a short grubber that went dead and we got 7 from tge restart.

If we make the punishment for tge ball going dead too harsh (giving tgem 20m and 7 tackles) then we risk eliminating short grubbers over the line - surely an unintended consequence.

So, what was the point of the rule change?

[Connor mcb]

Punish bad kicks

[Dave T]

42 minutes ago, Connor mcb said:

Punish bad kicks

Well done on missing the point. Westerman had hold of the ball.

[Oxford]

7 hours ago, Dave T said:

Well done on missing the point. Westerman had hold of the ball.

That's because the refs have it in for the Wolves and he should have let go.

Really it's for making the Aussies harder to beat when we don't have that rule available, it's an old charter.

 

[Dave T]

2 hours ago, Oxford said:

That's because the refs have it in for the Wolves and he should have let go.

Really it's for making the Aussies harder to beat when we don't have that rule available, it's an old charter.

 

Its a bit of a bugbear of mine - making changes without really thinking things through - zero tackles were brought in for a specific reason and that reason has been widened for no good reason.

I get the approach of trying to stop teams kicking it dead from the halfway line, but even in the early rounds we have seen an increase in kicking it into touch and for me that is because players wont risk aiming at the try line and it going dead. This now slows the game down further and the defensive team now has to start with a scrum and 6 tackles on say their own 10m line.

We really need to stop fannying about with rules without considering the unintended consequences.

The grubber over the try line is a skill and in afraid that we will just see the high kick to the corner used instead now as you only give 6 tackles if defused (i think).

[deluded pom?]

We've done it because the Australians do it Dave. We'll end up with the laws eventually aligned internationally but only because we'll kowtow to them. The Australians will continue to tinker with the laws to suit their vision of how the game needs to be played. They won't be consulting any external entity on changes to the laws any time soon.

[Oxford]

30 minutes ago, Dave T said:

Its a bit of a bugbear of mine - making changes without really thinking things through - zero tackles were brought in for a specific reason and that reason has been widened for no good reason.

I get the approach of trying to stop teams kicking it dead from the halfway line, but even in the early rounds we have seen an increase in kicking it into touch and for me that is because players wont risk aiming at the try line and it going dead. This now slows the game down further and the defensive team now has to start with a scrum and 6 tackles on say their own 10m line.

We really need to stop fannying about with rules without considering the unintended consequences.

The grubber over the try line is a skill and in afraid that we will just see the high kick to the corner used instead now as you only give 6 tackles if defused (i think).

So now you're asking the RFL to start being proactive and thoughtful in their approach to decision making! Where's that emoticon that falls over when you need him, he was here only yesterday!

17 minutes ago, deluded pom? said:

We've done it because the Australians do it Dave. We'll end up with the laws eventually aligned internationally but only because we'll kowtow to them. The Australians will continue to tinker with the laws to suit their vision of how the game needs to be played. They won't be consulting any external entity on changes to the laws any time soon.

Apart from being a bit repetitive Schoey was really good on Backchat ( Yes I know Oxford said that! Where's that emoticon that falls over when you need him, he was here only yesterday!) and he made the same point. There is a very valid argument for basing England's approach and game plans on the strengths of the game in SL and they are there in spite of the views of doom and gloomers.

[Scubby]

3 hours ago, Dave T said:

Its a bit of a bugbear of mine - making changes without really thinking things through - zero tackles were brought in for a specific reason and that reason has been widened for no good reason.

I get the approach of trying to stop teams kicking it dead from the halfway line, but even in the early rounds we have seen an increase in kicking it into touch and for me that is because players wont risk aiming at the try line and it going dead. This now slows the game down further and the defensive team now has to start with a scrum and 6 tackles on say their own 10m line.

We really need to stop fannying about with rules without considering the unintended consequences.

The grubber over the try line is a skill and in afraid that we will just see the high kick to the corner used instead now as you only give 6 tackles if defused (i think).

I would have 7 tackles for kicks dead from inside your own half only. This stops the old hoof it dead and line up to defend a 20 tap mindset. But the 7 tackles as it stands is an absolute dog's breakfast. You also seem to get 7 tackles for defusing a kick in goal and for missed drop goal attempts too - hard to make sense of that.

[Spidey]

It needs tweaking. I get its to stop the negative plays like kicking dead. But defusing bombs etc shouldn't be rewarded with an extra tackle, they're hardly negative plays

[Dave T]

Glad its not just me then. RL is meant to sets of six, not sure why we are making it 7 for no reason.

[Just Browny]

I tend to agree. It seems to be killing the grubber kick off at a fair speed, which is a shame. The quality of many teams' organisation in defence over recent seasons has made it harder, I think, for teams to score from close range apart from high kicks. I think this change will exacerbate that.

I like the idea of punishing bad kicks, but think a 7-tackle set is too long a set. If anything, I would be interested in seeing what the effect would be of going from 6 to 5 tackles, but that might be too radical a change.

[ivans82]

Far too much kicking in the game , anything that encourages more running , passing , and offloads will do for me . would like to know the percentage of tries directly from kicks under last years rules . anyone lay their hands on that info ?

[Dave T]

13 hours ago, ivans82 said:

Far too much kicking in the game , anything that encourages more running , passing , and offloads will do for me . would like to know the percentage of tries directly from kicks under last years rules . anyone lay their hands on that info ?

A small sample from this year shows that in the three Wire games so far - only 3 of the 22 tries were from kicks, 1 of those was a brilliant chip over from Brisbane.

Personally never seen too much of an issue in the UK.

[Farmduck]

I didn't like this law when it started in the NRL. It was a knee-jerk reaction to a non-existent problem. There was only one game the previous year where I saw kicking the ball dead as a deliberate last-10-minute tactic. Every other case I'm sure it was unintentional since getting the ball to stop in the in-goal was so much better a result. Some genius decided it would become a standard tactic so rule change.

It ridiculously harsh when you see a good kicker from 40m out get one to stop an inch over the dead ball line. We can all see that it was a 99% brilliant kick, not a slowing-down tactic.

[MZH]

Kicking the ball dead is a much less negative play than drilling it into touch. It also wastes alot less time.

In fact that's one of my pet hates, when there's half an hour to go and someone kicks deliberately to touch and one of the commentators says "what a wonderful kick by x." No its not, its boring, its easy to do and its negative.

[Scubby]

47 minutes ago, MZH said:

Kicking the ball dead is a much less negative play than drilling it into touch. It also wastes alot less time.

In fact that's one of my pet hates, when there's half an hour to go and someone kicks deliberately to touch and one of the commentators says "what a wonderful kick by x." No its not, its boring, its easy to do and its negative.

That is probably not in question. The problem is it also seems to count for missed drop goals. If you have a shot at a drop goal with the scores level and it goes wide the other teams gets 7 tackles to march down field. That seems wrong.

[deluded pom?]

1 minute ago, Scubby said:

That is probably not in question. The problem is it also seems to count for missed drop goals. If you have a shot at a drop goal with the scores level and it goes wide the other teams gets 7 tackles to march down field. That seems wrong.

Strangely, a drop goal attempt to win a game that misses and goes dead is seen as a negative action!

[Scubby]

1 minute ago, deluded pom? said:

Strangely, a drop goal attempt to win a game that misses and goes dead is seen as a negative action!

The rule even stands in golden point! Bizarre. 

[MikeFletchersBarmyArmy]

Have they done away with where a player foot just needs to be over the dead ball line to class the ball as dead when he touches it?. That use to punish some kicks that were perfect

[hariseldon]

The RFL haven't considered this new law with teams ground share with football clubs.

Spotland's rugby pitch is approximately 88m long.

Start from 20m, creep up the field and then the final tackle is within the opposition's 10m!

The RFL will find this law a bad idea at the grand final in Old Trafford.

Before you ask, the length of the football pitches at:

Spotland 114 yards long (104m)

Old Trafford 115 yards long (105m)

[Spidey]

1 minute ago, hariseldon said:

The RFL haven't considered this new law with teams ground share with football clubs.

Spotland's rugby pitch is approximately 88m long.

Start from 20m, creep up the field and then the final tackle is within the opposition's 10m!

The RFL will find this law a bad idea at the grand final in Old Trafford.

Before you ask, the length of the football pitches at:

Spotland 114 yards long (104m)

Old Trafford 115 yards long (105m)

How come a full 100m is marked at Old Trafford but only 88m at Spotland if similar sizes?

[Neil_Ormston]

I probably lean towards the view that 'punishing' the kicker here is too harsh.  Regardless, I think the whole 7 tackle thing is confusing, and if I'm honest, I'm losing track of what you get it for now.  IIRC it was originally introduced in the early days of SL for knock-ons, to encourage the defending team to pick the ball up & run, rather than just look to form the scrum - the first tackle being a 'zero tackle'.  But it seems to have spread from there.

I think there are other ways to incentivise/dis-incentivise accordingly to drive certain behaviour (which is what the 7 tackle rule is explicitly aiming to do), and still keep 6 tackles in all instances.  The interpretation of the advantage rule can incentivise creative play from errors, whilst if you did insist on penalising kicks going dead, you could adopt a 25 or 30 metre re-start.

Having watched for years, I never count tackles, but 95% of the time I've got a 'feel' for where we are in a set, and how many tackles are left; the 7 tackles thing confuses this, and makes the game harder to understand for newbies, which can't be a good thing.  It strikes me that the point of keeping the game simple, which has always been a selling point IMO, has been overlooked here.