James Graham says he's worried NRL Teams have begun capitalizing on a rules loophole that provides advantages for defensive sides when they intentionally incur time violation penalties during scrums. A renowned player from the Dragons and Bulldogs observed this tactic being employed in two matches over the past weekend. In these instances, defenses near their own try line seemed to purposely delay forming the scrum.
On The Bye Round podcast, Graham highlighted a particular segment of gameplay. North Queensland's surprising victory over the Panthers When the Cowboys led by four points towards the end of the match, they made a critical mistake near their own try line, fumbling the ball. This blunder gave Penrith an excellent chance to organize a structured offensive move from the ensuing scrum, setting themselves up possibly to equalize the score with approximately 15 minutes remaining.
Nathan Cleary set up an assault on the right side, with Penrith likely confident about pulling off a move fresh from their practice sessions and scoring a try that could put them in front. However, North Queensland dawdled assembling the scrum, leading to the shot clock signaling a penalty due to a delay infringement.
Since it was specifically a shot-clock violation rather than some other type of foul, the Panthers didn’t get the chance to reset the scrum and thus lost an important attacking edge. Consequently, the Cowboys could establish a strong defensive line near their own try-line, which proved far more advantageous compared to defending against a scrum.
James Graham says NRL teams are exploiting rule loophole
Graham mentioned that a comparable event occurred during Parramatta’s golden point victory against the Dragons in round five, implying that this might be an approach recognized by coaches as bending the regulations for their benefit. “The optimal chance to score points comes at the start of a scrum when it becomes seven versus seven,” Graham stated on The Bye Round podcast. “However, Penrith was unable to request the referee to re-form the scrum since the Cowboys committed a time infringement.” The ex-Bulldogs and Dragons player highlighted how this situation varied from typical scrum infractions.
If your team was offside during a scrum, the referee will blow for a penalty, allowing you to request of the ref that ‘we’ll repack the scrum.’ A similar scenario occurred in the match between the Dragons and Parramatta; at this point, the Dragons led by 12 points but committed an error near their own end, giving Parramatta solid attacking territory followed by a time violation leading to another penalty against them.
Graham mentions that he brought up the matter with NRL’s football chief, Graham Annesley, following his observation of the two occurrences during round five. “I verified this conversation with Graham Annesley over the phone since I thought ‘are the players unaware that they should request a reset for the scrum due to timing violations, or is such a request simply not permitted?’” He then clarified that according to Annesley, once a side receives a penalty for a time infringement, resetting the scrum isn’t an option.”
Graham worries that this scenario might allow players to take advantage of the loophole by avoiding scrum formations when they’re defending in perilous areas of the field, particularly as matches draw to a close. He also mentioned that although Annesley acknowledged this goes against the game’s ethos, the NRL stated it couldn’t modify the regulation halfway through the season to prevent such occurrences.
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The NRL has previously made rule changes or introduced minor adjustments midway through the season, so Annesley’s claim that nothing can be done about it this year seems puzzling. Such alterations would not be significant and probably wouldn’t affect game outcomes much. Given that opposing defenses benefit significantly from committing time infringements during perilous scrum scenarios, rest assured they will persist with this tactic.
The article initially appeared on Yahoo Sports Australia. https://au.news.yahoo.com/james-graham-calls-out-questionable-nrl-tactic-amid-fears-players-are-exploiting-loophole-033837191.html