Has Valandys ruined the game?

[BAGNF05]

Has Valandys ruined the game? 100% yes .
Go on social media and most comments regardless of who you support are complaints about on field decisions.
Most people I speak with,friends,family,work colleagues all have said how much they don’t like watching footy atm.
I usually watch most games,but at the moment it’s even a struggle to watch our boys play.
Definitely not the game most people fell in love with.

If WT were winning would you be enjoying it more though? I’m more salty about us than the rules.

 

[cochise]

The only way to save the new rules is to get rid of them for offside change it to an extra 3 tackles instead of a six again, but I would just prefer they remove them completely.

 

[Joel Helmes]

The only way to save the new rules is to get rid of them for offside change it to an extra 3 tackles instead of a six again, but I would just prefer they remove them completely.

Yep, I like it. Even just two extra.

 

[TigerTownSFS]

Just revert to the rules last year. They also need to take the game back off the refs. Maybe there needs to be a captains challenge to 6 again to try and hold them to account.

 

[Russell]

I have just two words for the Vlandys haters. TODD GREENBERG.

Ridiculous.

That is like saying - "better to get stabbed to death than shot"

Either way YOU ARE DEAD.

If they keep going - the game will be as well.

 

[JC99]

Just revert to the rules last year. They also need to take the game back off the refs. Maybe there needs to be a captains challenge to 6 again to try and hold them to account.

Agreed even just making offsides a penalty again will fix a lot.

 

[Goldust]

Has Valandys ruined the game? 100% yes .
Go on social media and most comments regardless of who you support are complaints about on field decisions.
Most people I speak with,friends,family,work colleagues all have said how much they don’t like watching footy atm.
I usually watch most games,but at the moment it’s even a struggle to watch our boys play.
Definitely not the game most people fell in love with.

If WT were winning would you be enjoying it more though? I’m more salty about us than the rules.

Yeah I would ?
Watching us this year is a huge struggle

 

[hank37w]

Just revert to the rules last year. They also need to take the game back off the refs. Maybe there needs to be a captains challenge to 6 again to try and hold them to account.

If they did that the game might take 3 hours.

Looking at it a bit more seriously, what I find interesting is how the Captain's Challenge has shown up the number of bad calls that the referees do make.

I don't know what percentage of challenges are successful, but I am sure that it is high enough to indicate that if 6 agains were able to be challenged there would also be a considerable number shown up as being unwarranted.

I am not setting out to be critical of referees because I understand that they are only human and have to make split second decisions on the run and it's certainly not a position many of us would like to be in.

I am not advocating that the Captain's challenge should be increased to any great extent as it would no doubt lead to frivolous challenges and deliberate attempts at slowing down the game, but I do think that there is a case for there being more than 1 per game.

 

[voice_of_reason]

The issue with six agains is the refs handing them out freely because the perception is they're not as severe as a penalty. If they were giving penalties instead of six agains there would be an outcry over the number of penalties and it would be fixed within a week.

Six agains are used for the most minor of infringements - which wouldn't have been bad enough to attract a penalty in the 'old' game. This is worse than penalties as it gives the attacking team much more 'roll' and the defending team gets no opportunity to catch a breath. End result, blowout scores.

If the refs stopped giving six agains for silly things (ref it like an Origin) there wouldn't be a problem.

 

[TigerTownSFS]

Has anyone else noticed this recent trend of referees stopping the game to give the players a dressing down. Can anyone remember this happening in the past? I’ve seen this a few times in recent weeks and it’s just weird. I am not a huge fan of Gus Gould but I think he is right on the refs having way to much control on the result. The point of going to one ref was to get the ref out of the game but the 6 again in virtually any situation has made them more influential than ever and the head contact clampdown has taken it to another level. 6 again should just be for illegally slowing down the ruck in an obvious fashion (the wrestle etc). Leave the rest as penalties which have a higher burden of proof to call and can be challenged (ie you can’t challenge 6 again but penalties can be). With the head contact just use the rugby criteria which allows for accidental head contact not being the fault of the defender.

 

[tonza]

Has Valandys ruined the game? 100% yes .
Go on social media and most comments regardless of who you support are complaints about on field decisions.
Most people I speak with,friends,family,work colleagues all have said how much they don’t like watching footy atm.
I usually watch most games,but at the moment it’s even a struggle to watch our boys play.
Definitely not the game most people fell in love with.

If WT were winning would you be enjoying it more though? I’m more salty about us than the rules.

No doubt I would, however I would still be turning off the other games early. At the moment I find I am turning off and watching other shows and just come back to get an update. Some games I wont waste my time as you know what is going to happen based on referee, home ground and position on table and the feeling the result is pre determined.

 

[jirskyr]

The issue with six agains is the refs handing them out freely because the perception is they're not as severe as a penalty. If they were giving penalties instead of six agains there would be an outcry over the number of penalties and it would be fixed within a week.

Six agains are used for the most minor of infringements - which wouldn't have been bad enough to attract a penalty in the 'old' game. This is worse than penalties as it gives the attacking team much more 'roll' and the defending team gets no opportunity to catch a breath. End result, blowout scores.

If the refs stopped giving six agains for silly things (ref it like an Origin) there wouldn't be a problem.

What you say might be an indicator that the issue is not so much the rule itself, but the policing of the rule.

The media seems overly focused on the 6-again as a stat or a concept, rather than investigating how the referees are policing 6-again. There seems to be a feeling in the regular and social media (not quite a consensus) that the 6-again was ok in 2020 but not ok in 2021. The only direct difference I am aware of is the inclusion of offsides in 2021; I haven't seen metrics on # 6-agains blown, impact on scores or possession etc.

Would it therefore be accurate to say the offsides are the issue? I wouldn't have thought so.

Especially after watching Origin I: that was a rout which I don't think had anything to do with refereeing. Nobody was complaining about the value of watching the pure class that NSW showed and QLD's inability to stem the tide. However the same types of results at club level are apparently an issue for most people, and that may be because of the perception of the involvement of the 6-agains rather than the gulf in class.

Like I said before, I originally thought the 6-again was a good idea because I thought it would eliminate the field position reward for even the dumbest of ruck penalties. I thought being allowed to kick for touch was too severe for minor infringements. I had no issue with them extending it to offsides at the start of the year. As it turns out, it may actually be that repeat 6-agains (not even consecutive 6-against, just a regular flow) cripple a team's ability to recover fatigue and re-set defence.

as an anecdote, I know a guy who became a long-distance runner about 10 years ago, going from average to very high level of fitness. I used to play touch football with him and I noticed that despite his high level of fitness, he still got tired just like me, at about the same rate as me. And he made a point that he discovered, in his change in fitness, that he couldn't really increase his maximum output duration, but instead he had major improvements in his long-term "middle-output", as well as his recovery. So he couldn't compete at prolonged high level, but after a small rest he could get back to that high level. I think about that a lot and how it might apply to the NRL now - that short 30-second rests are all a player needs to get his output back, but regular 6-agains introduce this long-term fatigue that teams struggle to recover from.

In saying all this, we have to remember that the opposite of an expansive free-flowing game is a conservative arm-wrestle. I think the issue for the NRL is that fans want the close contest of the arm wrestle but simultaneously the beauty of free-flowing football. They are almost mutually exclusive in a standard football match. And in full credit to Melbourne, they were previously renowned as the kings of the wrestle, with the game's biggest cheat / best rules manipulator, and he's now retired, and they are instead an attacking and ball-shifting powerhouse. It may simply be that Craig Bellamy and his squad are just far too good for everyone and it won't matter what rules you bring in.

 

[jirskyr]

The issue with six agains is the refs handing them out freely because the perception is they're not as severe as a penalty. If they were giving penalties instead of six agains there would be an outcry over the number of penalties and it would be fixed within a week.

Six agains are used for the most minor of infringements - which wouldn't have been bad enough to attract a penalty in the 'old' game. This is worse than penalties as it gives the attacking team much more 'roll' and the defending team gets no opportunity to catch a breath. End result, blowout scores.

If the refs stopped giving six agains for silly things (ref it like an Origin) there wouldn't be a problem.

What you say might be an indicator that the issue is not so much the rule itself, but the policing of the rule.

The media seems overly focused on the 6-again as a stat or a concept, rather than investigating how the referees are policing 6-again. There seems to be a feeling in the regular and social media (not quite a consensus) that the 6-again was ok in 2020 but not ok in 2021. The only direct difference I am aware of is the inclusion of offsides in 2021; I haven't seen metrics on # 6-agains blown, impact on scores or possession etc.

Would it therefore be accurate to say the offsides are the issue? I wouldn't have thought so.

Especially after watching Origin I: that was a rout which I don't think had anything to do with refereeing. Nobody was complaining about the value of watching the pure class that NSW showed and QLD's inability to stem the tide. However the same types of results at club level are apparently an issue for most people, and that may be because of the perception of the involvement of the 6-agains rather than the gulf in class.

Like I said before, I originally thought the 6-again was a good idea because I thought it would eliminate the field position reward for even the dumbest of ruck penalties. I thought being allowed to kick for touch was too severe for minor infringements. I had no issue with them extending it to offsides at the start of the year. As it turns out, it may actually be that repeat 6-agains (not even consecutive 6-against, just a regular flow) cripple a team's ability to recover fatigue and re-set defence.

as an anecdote, I know a guy who became a long-distance runner about 10 years ago, going from average to very high level of fitness. I used to play touch football with him and I noticed that despite his high level of fitness, he still got tired just like me, at about the same rate as me. And he made a point that he discovered, in his change in fitness, that he couldn't really increase his maximum output duration, but instead he had major improvements in his long-term "middle-output", as well as his recovery. So he couldn't compete at prolonged high level, but after a small rest he could get back to that high level. I think about that a lot and how it might apply to the NRL now - that short 30-second rests are all a player needs to get his output back, but regular 6-agains introduce this long-term fatigue that teams struggle to recover from.

In saying all this, we have to remember that the opposite of an expansive free-flowing game is a conservative arm-wrestle. I think the issue for the NRL is that fans want the close contest of the arm wrestle but simultaneously the beauty of free-flowing football. They are almost mutually exclusive in a standard football match. And in full credit to Melbourne, they were previously renowned as the kings of the wrestle, with the game's biggest cheat / best rules manipulator, and he's now retired, and they are instead an attacking and ball-shifting powerhouse. It may simply be that Craig Bellamy and his squad are just far too good for everyone and it won't matter what rules you bring in.

So maybe the answer is having refs police 6-agains less aggressively, like they do in Origin, and letting the players and the match flow without so much referee involvement. Recalling how everyone complains about excessive penalties of any type.

 

[Alex Seyfarth's #1 Fan]

What's even the point of watching? 15 minutes and the game is already over. Screw this game.

 

[JayT]

Rabbitohs hasn't had many 6 against though.

 

[Harvey]

The referees are ruining the game.

Vlandys has empowered them.

 

[tbones10]

No he hasn't, the game has changed, just that we haven't adapted, its not all the referees fault, we do give away stupid penalties and we are guilty of those shitty ruck infringements

 

[Spartan117]

I absolutely hate what the NRL has become.

6 from 8 this rownd were Blowout games.

Absolute garbage.

 

[Demps]

I absolutely hate what the NRL has become.

6 from 8 this rownd were Blowout games.

Absolute garbage.

The nicest man on the forum is now filled with hate.

PVL HAS TO GO!
Now I'm upset!
😡

 

[WeststigsRdaBest]

People can’t keep blaming the rules...we suck end of discussion...we just need to get good