The Most Ridiculous Rule in the NRL

It is rarely needed, but the most ludicrous rule in the NRL rule book has reared its ugly head in the same game two years in a row. If the ball hits a referee, he is deemed to have interfered with play and a scrum shall be packed with the feed going to the team who is in attack, which is determined by which half the ball is in.

In last years heritage round match between the Wests Tigers and the South Sydney Rabbitohs at the SCG, the Tigers were on the attack with the score 10-6 in favour of Souths who were searching for their first win of the season. The Bunnies managed to defend well and on a 4th tackle play, the ball was grubbered straight into referee Ben Cummins. Rabbitohs fans were disgusted when a scrum was awarded to the Tigers, who got another full set and scored. They hit the lead and from there the whole complexion of the game had changed. In a tight, perhaps crucial point in the game, the Tigers were handed an unfair advantage and there was nothing the Rabbits could do from preventing this turning point.

Coincidentally, last weekend in the heritage round match between the Wests Tigers and the South Sydney Rabbitohs at the SCG, the same event happened. The Tigers had just made in into the “attacking half” when on the last play, Farrah planted his kick right into referee Ashley Klein. A Tigers scrum feed followed as the Souths fans chant of “Bull$h*t” rang throughout the ground. Luckily for Souths the Tigers did not managed to score off the back of it, and the rest of that game is history.

It is amazing that such an archaic, unfair rule still exists in the game. The defending team is penalised for doing nothing wrong, for something they have no control over. You could even argue that they pay for a mistake made by the opposition. The NRL need to change this rule now, although it very rarely happens there is a chance it could occur in a big game, an Origin or a Grand Final, and unfairly change the course of that game.

There are many fairer options the NRL could consider when changing the rule. A simple turnover could be ruled, the same as when a team makes a mistake on the last play, the team could be told to go back and play the ball again or a scrum or play the ball could be awarded to kicking team but the tackle count does not restart.

Is it possible that players could start aiming at the ref more often as an option to get a repeat set? Effectively a player could turn around, chase the ref patrolling the ruck and kick the ball into them to get a scrum feed.

The NRL has enough unclear or unpopular rules, simple anomalies like this should be eliminated. All it does is unnecessarily add to the problem.

Below are the two incidents.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okcwkrhQEio]