Thanks for your question, Bunta, and you raise a good point. There have been no changes around the rules governing the rolling maul - although I am not too sure how far "your day" goes back.
The current law states all players involved must be caught in or bound to the maul. It goes on to say a player must be caught or bound to the maul and not just alongside it. Placing a hand on another player in the maul does not constitute binding. Therefore the South African players you are referring too, who are attached to the maul with only one hand are not technically bound and the maul is over.
Refs may not be penalising this as they feel it is not directly affecting play, but if they are made aware of it pre-match, they should respond to the challenge during the game. Let's hope your questions raise more awareness from our local boys.
Greetings Kamo,
A number of years back a panel with Paddy O'Brien looked at revising the balance of penalties and free-kicks. Nothing of note seems to have happened. No doubt the Northern Hemisphere did not like it; although they would have the World Cup if they did! (8-7 would have been 5-7).
Three points can be the result of a slip and a hand touching the ground in a scrum, an accidental foot over the advantage line, or being trapped in an impossible 'roll away' situation.
All of the above and heaps more should really be a free-kick. League is rarely won by a team with numerous penalties, but by the team with the most attack and thus tries. Do you agree? And if so is there something we can do to start to change this? Many thanks, Grant Nelson
Interesting series of questions, Grant, but I don't necessarily agree with all your points. Rugby and league are two different sports where different tactics are employed so I don't think they should be compared on penalties awarded.
As a general rule in rugby, the most attacking team with the best field position wins the game. If that team cannot penetrate the defensive line to score because of defensive infringements, should they be punished by taking away a fundamental of our game - the penalty kick? If that was the case then, as you point out, we would not be the current Rugby World Cup holders.
Also your suggestion of having more free kicks than penalty kicks was tried back in 2008/2009 under the ELVs - this is the panel Paddy was on. But in revision they weren't ratified for a number of reasons including that teams under pressure quickly realised that by infringing at the tackle/ruck they were only giving away a free kick, and not a penalty that could lead to three points - so the net result was that infringing actually increased.
Finally, the refs are aware of not making game-deciding decisions. The flipside is that if you put yourself in a position to be questioned, you can't complain when you are not happy about the outcome.
The top three teams of each Super 15 conference should qualify for the finals. Cheers, Tee Thompson
Tee, your suggestion would extend an already congested season by an extra week and do you really want more than half the teams in a competition qualifying for the finals? I don't and I can't see why we would reward the team that ended the regular season in ninth, but who knows what the future will bring.