AT the start of the season the RFL introduced the captain’s challenge to Super League games, emulating, as it always tries to do, what happens in the NRL.
But the problem we now have is that we are having so many challenges and video reviews of tries that the games are lasting much longer than they should.
Sky pundit Jon Wilkin made the point during one of the weekend’s televised matches.
“I supported it when it came in,” he said.
“But it needs a real review. Games are getting too long. There are too many stops. The speed of our game is a big issue. We watch the NRL play at such a speed and look at the second half here; how long has the second half taken and it’s punctuated by challenges and video-referee decisions.
“It slows the pace of the game. We need to do everything we can to speed it up and make the game entertain.”
Castleford coach Danny McGuire has made much the same point on Sky recently.
The problem is that the NRL seems able to make decisions very quickly, perhaps because they have more cameras covering games, especially close-up ones, whereas in Super League it’s often difficult to see precisely what happened, either in the tackle or over the tryline.
But at the moment I think it’s safe to say that the current system of stopping the game for lengthy periods every few minutes isn’t doing us much good.