KEY POINTS:
Coaches, players and NRL boss David Gallop expect an early season surge in penalties next year after a crackdown on grapple tackles was overwhelmingly endorsed at yesterday's annual football conference.
In a meeting attended by all NRL coaches apart from Manly's Des Hasler and Melbourne's Craig Bellamy, recommendations include a tackler having a special duty to immediately release a player after any accidental/incidental contact with the head or neck and "bulldogging" tackles, where a player is dragged to the ground by a headlock, be penalised.
Other proposals include lengthy suspensions for "crusher" tackles, with referees to be more stringent in laying charges against players penalised for attacking the head or neck.
"Careless contact with the head or neck could also lead to a charge, that's going to raise the bar," Gallop said.
Gallop and Melbourne's premiership-winning captain Cameron Smith felt the adjustments players would need to make would inevitably result in an increase of penalties.
"It will probably take six to eight weeks for players to adjust to the new rule where you can't make contact with the head," Smith said.
Gallop said the big factor to emerge from the conference was the need for consistency from the start of the season on the application of any amendments regarding the grapple tackle.
He didn't anticipate the proposed changes regarding the grapple tackle having any problem being cleared by the NRL board.
Another potential change favoured by the majority yesterday was a reduction of interchanges from 12 to 10.
The conference produced little support, however, for the concept of a captain's challenge.
"We don't really want to slow the game down too much with a lot of stoppages, it's bad for the fans and the players don't want that either," Smith said.
It was recommended the referee could request the video referee to confirm whether a "lost possession" was genuine or the result of a "strip" only where the referee intended calling a scrum and the replay was available as the scrum formed.
The conference decided the stripping rule would not apply if a player was in the motion of scoring a try, with defenders able to play at the ball in such an instance.
- AAP
