Eden Tigers RLFC News Article

Twenty/20 Rugby League (maybe forty/40 is a better name)

Watching the State of Origin tonight I came up with the idea of Twenty/20 Rugby League. Twenty/20 Rugby League will be just like normal rugby league except there will be no penalty kicks, no scrums and no line drop outs. Removing these "slow goes" of the game is really not that difficult and will make for a non stop action packed, revitalized form of the game.
Whenever a scrum is called for under the rules of normal rugby league we simply have a hand over. Ok we understand that, and the idea is not that novel. What about those penalty kicks.
Well whenever a penalty is called for under the rules of normal rugby league instead of having a slowly taken kick of some sort we merely have a "maximum tackles adjustment".
In this I mean, if the defending team is penalised then the attacking team has their maximum tackle count increased by six and play continues uninterrupted. To explain:- An attacking team starts with 6 tackles , if during the playing of these six tackles they receive a penalty then the referee just increases there count to 12 tackles and play continues without interruption. Further penalties could increase the maximum tackles to 18, 24 or beyond. It will be the referees job to keep track of the maximum tackles allowed by the team and to keep the players informed by yelling "that's 3 of 6" or "that's 7 of 12" etc.
If the attacking team is penalised then they give the ball to the opposition who restart the game the same as if it were a handover.
Line drop outs will be replaced with the attacking team taking a tap from the center of the twenty metre line as soon as they get the spare ball from the ball boy (not when the defending team is ready).
So under the rules of Twenty/ 20 rugby league the game only stops when a try is scored (or for a serious injury.)
This new game would have no place for video referees and I can foresee the rules regarding the number of allowable interchanges being adjusted and an increase in the use of the sin bin for deliberately slowing the game down.
The more I think about this idea the more I think it is the way to go with the future of Rugby League. It would certainly make for an exciting non stop game. The only thing I do not like is the name. I think a better name would be Forty/40 Rugby League (or perhaps Thirty/30 rugby league).