THE RL1908 BLOG

News, Reviews & Opinion - Sean Fagan - RL1908.com

Recent discussions have put forward the idea of trialling the 5m rule (defenders) again to see if it leads to more attacking ball-movement.

Would it work?

A reduction from 10m to 5m could only be justifiable (to me) if it is accompanied by a far greater intolerance by referees towards the tackler holding/wrestling with the ball-carrier i.e. the referee should call "held" the instant momentum is stopped and/or the moment the ball can't be passed. Under the 5m rule, the referee should also be made to demand that the tacklers release/roll-away much sooner.

Unfortunately, it has long been forgotten that the focus of the rules/game is on the movement of the football, not the players (tackling/wrestling between the tacklers and the ball-carrier).

Calling "held" was originally determined by whether the ball was locked up or not (i.e. "can the ball be passed or not?" - call "held" the instant it can't be passed).

Today (and for past 4 decades at least) it is all based upon the battle/momentum between the ball-carrier and the tacklers, and "held" can occur 5 seconds or more after the football has been locked up.

Despite everyone thinking that the "held" rule is companion to the play-the-ball rule of 1906, and therefore a rugby league invented rule, the "held" rule actually goes all the way back to Rugby School in the 1840s. Rugby union got rid of the "held" rule once it allowed mauls in the field of play (in the 1940s).

Indeed, "held" in its original form in the mid-1800s wasn't referring to locking up the football and stopping a player's progress, but merely the attacking player being held/grasped by a defender.

If you want to get a closer understanding of what "held" originally meant have a look at an Australian rules game (which also evolved from Rugby School).

In 1877, Rule 7 of the VFA in Melbourne stated, "In the event of a player with the ball in hand trying to pass an adversary, and being held by him, he must at once drop the ball." In the AFL today, this rule now requires the player caught in this situation to kick or hand-pass the ball, and no longer can he simply drop the ball. It's a rule designed to discourage attacking players from succumbing to tacklers.

I often wonder what a difference it would make to rugby league if we had a 5m rule, applied the "held" rule as ruthlessly as they do in Australian rules, and we also demanded tacklers release/roll-away far quicker than currently.

The downside of that is that you won't get those last-second off-loads that sometimes come from a ball-carrier covered in tacklers.

However, if that means ball-carriers opt to pass/off-load the football far earlier and/or instead of running straight into tacklers, than I'm not sure that is a bad thing at all.

Again, look at Australian rules today, where the laws set out that "prior opportunity" comes into play. If an AFL player, with the ball in hand, opts to run at/near a defender, and is "held", he must immediately kick or had-pass the ball - if he can't, and is caught with the ball, he is penalised. Why? Because he had the chance to avoid the tackle or pass/kick the ball before being caught with it.

Similarly, rugby league's play-the-ball and "held" rules were originally meant to be punishment for being caught with the football.

Today, the attacking team is actually rewarded for being tackled with the football and allowing play to die (defenders forced back 10m, plus every chance of getting a penalty in the play-the-ball wrestle, in the tackle, or defenders infringing at marker and/or 10m).

Any wonder it is a winning strategy to play a no risk game when in possession of the football.

When you think about it, until we have more incentives to avoid being tackled/"held" than to pass or kick the football, we will continue to see the play-the-ball as the predominant feature of a rugby league game, instead of ball movement.

Imagine a game where we more regularly see the ball movement we did in Origin 1 (2008) when Billy Slater took off on that kick return and launched an attacking raid of 70m - the crowd loved it, the entire field (length and width) was used to move (run and pass) the ball.

We're now over 400 play-the-balls per game, yet in 1908 there were fewer than a dozen a game. It's a bit exaggerated, but that is 400 times a player opted to run at tacklers & die with the football instead of running away from tacklers and/or passing the football.

When rugby league started in Australia in 1908, despite the play-the-ball rule of 1906 being one of the changes from rugby union rules, it barely rated a mention in any newspaper articles of 1908 explaining the rules of the "new rugby" of rugby league, or match reports.

Plenty of mentions of 13-aside, no line-outs, bouncing the ball into touch from kicks - but bugger all on the play-the-ball!

Making the change to fast call of "held" could never work under a 10m rule as it is physically impossible for the defending team to stay on side under fast play-the-balls.

Ironically, under a 5m rule, and lightning-fast calling of "held", rugby league could be an exceptionally fast-paced game. Perhaps even too fast for defenders at 5m.