The Six Again.

So…yesterday, unsurprisingly the Melbourne Storm lost another game taking them to 05 after their pretty hot start to the season. The first time I talked about their loss was the one to the Broncos and haven’t commented on it since. I mean, there isn’t much to comment on, because the losses they’ve racked up since that game have been in sort of similar fashion. The worse of it was of course the loss to the Panthers. That was a total dismantling! We won’t touch that one lol.

But aside from the losses they have had; there is one thing I specially wanted to talk about today. And ironically it has nothing to do with their performances! No, no in fact today’s opinion is going to go off a moment I saw on socials, in particular Twitter.

I didn’t save that comment but basically after one of the losses by the Storm I saw a twitter user saying stuff long the lines of: the Nrl changed / created the Six Again Rule specifically to stop the Storm from doing their usual slowing the tackle plays. A play they have used for many, many years.

Now, we could probably have a very long conversation regarding the Chicken Wing Tackle, the Wrestle Tackle and the Crusher Tackle but…that is not the issue. I’m here solely to discuss that comment about the Six Again being brought in specifically to target the Storm.

I am adamant that is NOT A TRUE STATEMENT. The rationale by the NRL in bringing in the Six Again rule has everything to do with making the game a tad more exciting, increasing the risk the players need to take, reminding players of every team that slowly down is not right, delaying the play is not correct and bringing in a new way of playing high risk and high reward. Every team has to adjust to it, some have done it quicker than others. No way was it done to target one team.

The play style of the teams have had to change, they need to be more adaptive. It takes time for some players and some teams to adjust hence we are seeing Six Again more often, and you see how crazy the next play gets. More repeat sets, more opportunities, players get tired faster and make more mistakes. So the rule was specifically for the GAME PLAY of Rugby League.

So that Twitter user whom made the comment, for me was way off the mark. Plus that same user has posted the same thing on everything related to the Storm. No subtle changes to the wording, straight copy and past. Which by the way; makes me wonder if it is being posted by an actual Twitter user or an AI Bot.

As a Rugby League fan, do I personally like the Six Again rule? It’s cool, it’s exciting and certainly feels like the game has sped up a bit, where before it felt like things were getting a bit stale. And of course when tackling the opposition you’d see players lying all over the ruck it was annoying. Because that can’t be done (I’m sure they bend the rules a tiny bit the players) all the time and they are forced to move / roll away quickly creating some pretty neat action. It probably the one rule to the sport that is a positive one. However; I just want to add that, while there are positives, the risk is we can see injury to players increase. I don’t’ think its that big a deal at the moment but with the increased speed of the play the ball don’t’ be surprised if injuries from it does increase over the time.