Early Season Positives

[GeordieSaint]

We’ve had a few threads on issues highlighted in the few games so far. But plenty of positives as well are clear. 

Biggest one for me has been the play the ball. Much much better and think it has speed the game up a bit already. Good to see. 

[East Hull Robins]

Agree on play the ball. Much cleaner.

attendances have looked great, I’ve been to both KR games so far and both full houses at the respective grounds. 
 

Not sure if it’s actually true but to me feels like the media attention on the game as a whole has improved and almost feels like a big sport. Key is to keep that level all year. 
 

Ash Handleys two tries, worth the entrance fee alone. Top quality stuff that. 
 

Rovers top of the league! What’s not to love

[Fly-By-TheWire]

Ultimately, the play the ball is still unfortunately a long way behind the NRL.   Remember back at the start of SL we brought over Greg McCallum in an attempt to standardise the refereeing?   I wonder if there is some value in bringing one of the recently retired NRL refs as a mentor to Bentham?   There seems to be very little difference in refereeing between NRL games, but the SL games seem to involve a lot of subjectivity in policing the play the ball (and also the matches in general).   Different SL referees seem to have their own key areas of play which they focus on at the moment, as well as different interpretations of misdemeanours (last night's Donaldson incident for example).

Personally, I prefer a quicker game to the wrestle.   But by my own admission, I'm not a purist.   If every team could be scoring those Handley tries every week we'd be getting more airtime on BBC breakfast I'm sure!

Edited February 23 by Fly-By-TheWire

[Damien]

The play the ball has been great. It's what many of us have been calling out for on here for years and was a long overdue fix.

[meast]

Biggest positive for me is that Huddersfield are unbeaten

[meast]

37 minutes ago, GeordieSaint said:

We’ve had a few threads on issues highlighted in the few games so far. But plenty of positives as well are clear. 

Biggest one for me has been the play the ball. Much much better and think it has speed the game up a bit already. Good to see. 

Yeah the play the ball, the wrestling of both man and ball made the game almost unwatchable.

We all remember the whole throwing the ball into a defender farce, I was close to packing it all in with that.

Glad it now resembles rugby league again and not MMA cage grappling.

[Dave T]

I know it will calm down, but I think things have looked very good on tv. The grounds have been broadly full, even the likes of Hull KR on a miserable night looks a vibrant fun place to go, with fans mingling i the fan village and pyro etc as the players enter. The commentators continuously described the crowd as huge, and they were noisy - in reality, there iwll be far bigger crowds, even this weekend, but it looked and sounded great. Not unlike a Catalans game really.

Hull looked great last week, and we saw record crowds across the board. We have a full WCC tomorrow to look forward to as well. 

It'd be great if we can keep the momentum going, as we do inevitably see some real dips throughout the year.

[Fly-By-TheWire]

For the WCC, the weather is looking dry but icy cold.   Should make for an open game, and the temperature and wind chill might favour Wigan a bit.   Perfect advert being on the Beeb, so let's hope it's kept flowing to showcase some attacking rugby.

[Tommygilf]

2 hours ago, East Hull Robins said:

Not sure if it’s actually true but to me feels like the media attention on the game as a whole has improved and almost feels like a big sport.

A lot of that feels like just making it easier for the media too. We've got clips ready to go, we've got stories printed and content accessible.

It just feels more professional than previously.

[Dave T]

Has anything changed with the PTB? As in, a change in rules or interpretation? 

[Tommygilf]

3 minutes ago, Dave T said:

Has anything changed with the PTB? As in, a change in rules or interpretation? 

Have to touch or try to touch with your foot, and stand up to play it with no hands on the floor, iirc.

[Eddie]

2 hours ago, East Hull Robins said:

Agree on play the ball. Much cleaner.

attendances have looked great, I’ve been to both KR games so far and both full houses at the respective grounds. 
 

Not sure if it’s actually true but to me feels like the media attention on the game as a whole has improved and almost feels like a big sport. Key is to keep that level all year. 
 

Ash Handleys two tries, worth the entrance fee alone. Top quality stuff that. 
 

Rovers top of the league! What’s not to love

Surely it wasn’t a full house last night, it looked like there were plenty of empty seats in the stand in the left (as you look on tv)? The stand opposite the camera looked like it was rammed and rocking, really good. 

[Dave T]

Just now, Tommygilf said:

Have to touch or try to touch with your foot, and stand up to play it with no hands on the floor, iirc.

I thought that was already in, trying to touch with the foot was in for a couple of years wasn't it? 

[Tommygilf]

5 minutes ago, Dave T said:

I thought that was already in, trying to touch with the foot was in for a couple of years wasn't it? 

I don't know I just know its been mentioned as a change in pre season

[Human Punk]

It's been remarkable how easy the players have seemed to find playing the ball with the foot, after having so many problems doing so previously. I like the clampdown on players adding to the tackle for no other reason than to slow it down after it's complete too. And also the penalty instead of the 6 again inside the 40.

In fact it's all good, or will be once the players stop doing the high shots and we can enjoy 13v13 again.

[Tommygilf]

15 minutes ago, Dave T said:

I thought that was already in, trying to touch with the foot was in for a couple of years wasn't it? 

Match Officials also instructed to “ensure that ball carriers regain their feet on the mark and make a genuine attempt to play the ball with the foot”.

https://www.rugby-league.com/article/62371/new-for-2024-–-laws-changes-to-be-introduced-in-christmas-fixtures

I must admit though when I search PTB rules RFL, one of the first articles was from 2020...

[Click]

1 hour ago, Dave T said:

I thought that was already in, trying to touch with the foot was in for a couple of years wasn't it? 

From what I understand, it was already in but referees have been instructed to actually enforce it this season.

[East Hull Robins]

1 hour ago, Eddie said:

Surely it wasn’t a full house last night, it looked like there were plenty of empty seats in the stand in the left (as you look on tv)? The stand opposite the camera looked like it was rammed and rocking, really good. 

I’m pretty sure they don’t sell the seats in the top corners due to restricted view, so technically aren’t included in the capacity. I’d argue there was 9.8-10k in there with a capacity of 10,200ish. Not too fussed about us not publishing attendances but would be insightful for last night. Either way it was rammed which is a good sign

[ATLANTISMAN]

They dont knocks around 3/400 seats off crowd was a tad over 10000 excellent stuff well done Rovers.

 

Paul 

[tiffers]

I can see a close game (preferable Wigan win) with a full house, live on BBC2 tomorrow night being massive. Another big, big media push to get RL the headlines on a Saturday packed with sporting action can only be a good thing! It's the continued push of quality stories and consistently being able to follow it up with one after another, after another that will help establish cut through.

For me, the media coverage has been massively different this year. That has definitely helped with making things feel bigger and better.

On the field, completely agree with the above posters - the PTB is so much cleaner and makes the game an awful lot easier to watch. So far, on the whole, the refs have got the vast majority of things right and I think the new clamp down is making for a much better product on the field.

[LeeF]

3 hours ago, Click said:

From what I understand, it was already in but referees have been instructed to actually enforce it this season.

Plus the “stability” when actually playing the ball means it is much more controlled and therefore cleaner. 

[N2022]

A massive positive for me is the games being on BBC. Will be watching WCC. Hope it's a classic.

I suspect many occasional fans would appreciate less tolerance of lying on the tackled player. Needs to be clear the tackle is completed, but if sped up would stretch defences recovery-wise, so there could be more space for flair. I'm sure there would be downsides. Just my take.

[corvusxiii]

Not seen any games tonight (Leeds United or someone playing..) but was cheered by this thread as I searched about looking for SL.

Not so cheery now though as we approach 10pm. 

Talk about dropping the ball! 

An astonishing hemorrhaging of goodwill!