NRL 2026

Very sad about Jai Arrow. Been diagnosed with MND. Career over and not a good life expectancy based on the stats. Poor bloke.

 

Sad to see RTS have such a shit end to his NRL career. Dude was the best fullback in the world for a couple years there.

I wish more players would look at what happened to him, Benji, Hayne etc. and realise you probably won't come back a better player. The transition to a different skill set is underestimated along with the fact that club union is absolute toilet.

 

That was poorly worded, wasn't trying to imply they do. I meant to say there's a decent chance they'll come back to league after failing in other codes, and will have declined.

 

For god's sake, just piss off with this regripping bullshit. You don't need to regrip the ball when grounding it as a defender. Or to tap on or kick a dropping ball. It's a new phenomenon which goes against the way tries have been ruled for almost all of RL history. It's illogical and makes what should be a simple and consistent interpretation, confusing.

If your hand, fingers or forearm exert downward pressure when the ball hits the ground, it's a try. There's no rational argument for why it shouldn't be.

 

It happens mostly when an attacking team is close to the opposition try line and the defence is only back a couple metres.

Perfect example was Cleary swatting at Grant's arm in the 5th minute of game 2. Like, why is that a penalty? Cleary is onside, Grant has picked the ball up and taken a full step. He has every right to play at the arm. It's just yet another example of rules being changed to advantage the attacker, and hamstring the defender. It shouldn't be a penalty.

I do disagree with Wilson though, that if you strike at the ball, as Cleary did, it should be a knock-on. You don't have to have possession to knock-on. Otherwise we'll have players slapping and raking at the ball every second tackle with no concern for winning possession.

 

Close to the line, yeah I think players will slap, punch, and rake the ball at every opportunity if it won't be ruled a knock-on. Everyone knows I value defence more than most but that isn't defence. It just encourages poor tackle technique.

I get your point about contested possessions. I think defenders should have to earn the right though. My idea that I've been thinking about for a while would be if you make a one-on-one tackle, and you get to marker in time you can strike for the ball. It has to be one-on-one from start to finish though. I don't like this crap where two defenders deliberately let go of a ball carrier so old mate can attempt a strip. Again, encouraging shitty defending.

Reward the one-one-one tackle imo. At least to some degree it attempts to kill the two birds you're talking about, (gang tackles and lack of contested possession) with one stone. Just an idea.

I also think it would make centres, who tend to make more one-on-one tackles, more valuable.