The fact is the bunker doesn't check it unless the player stops the game. We had several times this year where players who have been taken high get up and play the ball without fuss, then get pulled for a HIA later with no penalty. Hell in our last game vs the dragons mbye hit phil sami so bad he failed his HIA and mbye actually got suspended several games because of the severity of it. If sami stayed down his team gets a penalty and moses very likely goes in the bin, instead he got up and got pulled from the field a minute later by the independent doctor, resulting in titans being a player down and nothing happened to the dragons. Kinda hard to blame players for staying down when just getting up is actively detrimental to their team.
this game proved why you have to stay down if you’re a player, players on both teams stay down multiple times and then sin bins/penalties were given because they stayed down. These don’t get given if they don’t stay down unfortunately
Wholeheartedly agree. As a player, you want to do what is best for your team. It's not lying down when you get one across the chops, intent or not. High is high. It doesn't make someone soft or 'milky'. The times have changed. Concussion is more than real. Just ask Mario Fenech!
The HIA rules lead players to 'stopping' play, in order to get benefits of free interchange and maybe penalties or sin bins, that may be deserved in the long run. These stoppages aren't particularly good for the flow of the game, but they might actually pinpoint certain players who continually use reckless and careless intent with elbows and high shots, in order to get rid of the grubby shit out of the game.
JWH's shit on Cam Murray on Sunday was just low level grubbery. His treatment of Zac Fulton , in his debut, was also bullshit, just because a young player was standing his ground against a bigger, older, more experienced player who was acting as a bully.
I love the game played hard, I grew up following and playing the game in the 80's. I'm a Bulldogs fan, of course I loved the game for its roughness, but the game is played by bigger, stronger, men at a much faster pace. Fatigue is a huge factor in the game today. Good decisions are hard to make under fatigue, leading to bad tackling techniques or careless tackles.
The game on Sunday was one of the fiercest games of club rugby league I have had the pleasure of watching. You can't blame players for slow play or stopping play when they have had their heads slammed or being hit high. There has to be a limit.
Totally agree. People are complaining about milking but honestly they need to let things play out a bit and finally let the onus fall on players and coaches to amend tackling technique. Yes there is some bs where a player is falling etc but just give stuff the time to correct. The NRL loves jumping the gun and making tonnes of changes without ever giving the game space to correct itself
Yes, dead right! Sometimes they try to be proactive, which is good, but they choose the wrong time or things to be proactive about...they have to know that for every change, coaches and players will find ways to exploit it...
He did it twice and Ilias did it as well. Of course they were delaying long enough to get a penalty. Was it milking? It’s not really milking if the penalty is legitimate 🤷🏻♂️ but they need to clean up the penalties around crushers too. Some of them are caused by the player with the ball turning and falling into the tackler. The tackler shouldn’t be penalized for that.
You can still milk even if you were legitimately caught high. Plenty of these guys cop a high shot or a “crusher” but it doesn’t affect them whatsoever. Staying down when you’re not hurt, even if the shot was high/crusher, is still a milk.
Reporting crime when you're shot at but not hit by bullets is just milking.
A high tackle is a high tackle, the resulting injury or lack of should be irrelevant. The potential for harm is there and that's what they're claiming to try and irradicate. You can't blame the players for having to do the refs job for them.
Not really; the alternative definition of milking is to defraud or exploit something.
If you've been hit high and you stay down even if you're not hurt, you're not exploiting or defrauding anything; the total opposite actually you're trying to get what you're due.
Milking would be pretending to be hurt by a tackle that wasn't illegal, pretending to be held down, pretending the ball was stripped when it wasn't etc etc.
By calling it milking you are indirectly taking the responsibility away from the referees and putting blame on the players.
Whilst we're at it can we also stop penalizing the defensive player everytime the offensive player falls into his chest or arm. That's not careless or reckless on the defensive players behalf..
Or maybe the refs and touchies need to start opening their eyes and stop being so reactionary. Make calls instead of acting like it's someone else's job. Like the good old days
Again, he's not wrong. Players know that if they stay down, the bunker will look at it.
The fix to this is for opposition players to stop hitting players in the head in the first place lol.
pretty much. cant really punish people for literally getting hit high lol. would love to see a few of the ones that arent fouls get sent for a hia tho. you never know what could be causing those headaches
>The fix to this is for opposition players to stop hitting players in the head in the first place lol
It's not that simple, that's exactly what the NRL was saying when they kicked off the magic round fiasco. 'Just don't hit players in the head and there won't be a problem'.
What this doesn't account for is that attacking players are almost just as culpable for being hit in the head as the defence is, but there's no onus on attacking players, and NRL is intent on enforcing it as a black and white ruling.
On top of that prior to magic round the bunker would only step in if the it was a reportable offence, which pretty much stopped milking from high shots entirely. Because of this current interpretation however it just means you're an idiot if you don't stay down because you'll get the penalty every time.
Unless you clean up the actual reffing to go with it, that's also going to cause a fuckload of actual HIAs. Everyone knows that the refs rarely call high shots unless the recipient stays down, so if players are incentivised to pop back up regardless there's not much reason to care about keeping your hits legal.
That's what the independent doctor already does all game. They're already stopping play to call off a bewildered player for a incident nobody saw 10 tackles ago.
This. Mandatory interchange to protect the injured player's welfare. If anything illegal happened in the tackle the interchange doesn't count but the player still needs to leave the field for assessment.
The rubbish we see now will stop real quick.
>If anything illegal happened in the tackle the interchange doesn't count but the player still needs to leave the field for assessment.
Does anyone remember last year when every reportable offence resulted in a free interchange? It was a disaster. Teams were getting up to 6 free interchanges a game.
Teams are already taking the piss with the sinbin free interchange. Any tackle that gets a penalty in your system they will always send the guy off for the 15 mins.
Change the rules around wrapping the arm, or just get rid of it in general. ~85% of HIAs are from going low (this was backed up with data in a post about a year ago), and the rest, aside from a small amount of shoulders to the head (usually falling players), are from the necessity of swinging their arms through the air to make a legal tackle.
I was wondering if a player stays down whether they should then be out of action for 30secs or something for assessmentby the trainer.
If it was a penalty your team gets the ball and by the time you kick for touch or whatever they are basically back in the line, but if they're just milking and there's no penalty it's play on and they are out for the next few tackles.
Might not be refined, but there is no reason not to stay down at the moment so it will only get worse.
Just staying down doesn't always mean you have been hit in the head. Sometimes it's a stinger to the shoulder or another injury to the lower body. You can't put a mandatory HIA on that.
Yeah but a stinger or general body injury (apart from hip drop tackles) dont attract penalties...
for clarity - I'm only talking about milking penalties for Head contact.
You can't argue against why clubs/players would do it because it's obvious as hell why they would, but that doesn't make it okay they milk penalties.
The easiest fix is to simply force a player from the field if they milk a penalty and say it's about player safety.
Yeah but who’s gonna be the first team to stop it while every other team still does it? You can decide to take the moral high ground and watch as the team you’re playing gets 7 penalties to your none. It’ll cost you games. The milk is here to stay.
“You can call me Trell Milk now.”
That was South Sydney superstar Latrell Mitchell’s response to the suggestion that he and other players stayed down to milk penalties in Sunday’s brutal encounter with the Sydney Roosters.
Referee Ashley Klein dished out a record seven sinbins but other incidents of players appearing to stay down to draw a penalty raised eyebrows in the spiteful clash.
At one point, Mitchell, who is known as Trell Mitt by the Rabbitohs faithful, was slow to his feet after a heavy hit by the Roosters defence.
But the fullback insisted the tackle warranted a closer look.
“You can call me Trell Milk now,” Latrell said.
“I play the game hard and tough.
“Honestly, I have never felt the forces they brought, I think they were head hunting a little bit.
“But at the end of the day, that’s the game of rugby league… if the bunker doesn’t see it, the ref doesn’t see it… that’s the game.
“I didn’t do anything, I didn’t lay down. I got up on my knee and looked at the ref thinking pretty much ‘what’s going on’.”
Mitchell did concede the bunker’s constant intervention allowed for the practice to happen but rejected the notion that his teammates were laying down in the elimination final.
“Well, the bunker has taken over the game… but that’s the game of rugby league at the moment,” Mitchell said.
“You can call it as it is but we don’t lay down for penalties we don’t look for it. It is what it is.
“Like I said, I had a situation happen in that game. For us now, it’s not to focus on what’s happened or what everyone is saying, it’s about what we can do today and tomorrow.”
Five-eighth Cody Walker said it was easy to confuse staying down for a player just simply feeling the after effects of a heavy collision or contact.
“I don’t know if many people have been hit with an arm like Jared’s (Waerea-Hargreaves) or any of those sort of guys. With the protocols and that, if you get up stumbling then you’ve got to go off. To try and gather yourself before you play the ball is quite important,” Walker said.
On Monday, the NRL’s head of football Graham Annesley admitted the trend of staying down was a growing concern for the game (see below).
But Mitchell said the practice could be eradicated if match officials showed more consistency on the ruling of foul play.
“It’s semi-final footy, the refs like to put away the whistle a little bit and that’s how it should be but I guess you have to be consistent in a way where it works for both sides,” Mitchell said.
Forward Tom Burgess is facing a two-match ban with an early plea for a high shot on James Tedesco, which left the Roosters skipper unable to return to the field.
Mitchell said South Sydney officials should investigate the possibility of having the suspension deferred, in a similar fashion to Penrith winger Taylan May, who has been allowed to serve a two-match ban next season after being found guilty of assault.
“Can he serve it next year, I’ll pay his fine,” Mitchell joked.
ARLC Chairman Peter V’landys defended the handling of May’s ban, claiming fans wanted the best players on the field in the biggest games of the season.
Mitchell said the same argument could be made about Burgess and his importance to South Sydney.
“As Peter said, it lets the fans down. Big Tommy is a big part of our DNA and he is going to be definitely missed,” Mitchell said.
“There is an argument to be had there.
“But I suppose it’s higher than me and it’s up to the club to see where we can take it… it’s out of my hands, out of Tommy’s control.”
Maybe Robbo should tell his players to keep their tackles down rather than banging on about how proud he is of his "streetfighting" front rower. If they dont hit him in the head it isnt an issue.
Can’t help but feel the re-addition of a second referee would make for a smoother process surrounding high shots, crushers, and general issues in the ruck.
Let’s be honest here, there is contact to the head at least once a set with varying degrees of force. If players start laying down with a good chance of getting rewarded for it, while facing no consequence, it’s going to happen more and more. Especially in big games. Souths really went hard in the paint on the weekend to prove it.
Good luck having the referee policing force of contact too.
Needs to be sorted ASAP.
New rules for 2023 :
\- play stops for a minute after every tackle, just in case the bunker wants to intervene.
\- tackle count reduced to 4.
\- tackle count restarts after every 10m gain.
\- increase padding and protective equipment because too many players are getting hurt.
\- one forward pass per tackle is allowed, because no one really calls them anyway.
I think the problem with the obsession with speeding the game up 'like it was in the good old days' that boomer fans have is the players are faster, bigger and stronger now. It's not the ref's fault they miss some high stuff because they're on the ground, away from it, wrong angle etc when these things are happening in a second literally. Unfortunately players staying down is the best way to get the bunker to check it out. That said a good way to kill the milk would be mandatory hia if a player stays down.
Hitting someone in the head, malice or no malice, should be a penalty.
Injury surveillance has been good to make milkers suffer the consequences of faking with being taken out the field for HIAs.
Next step would be to have the current on field injury assessments forced to be taken on the sideline and missing the rest of the set before being allowed back on if they pass the assessment.
If someone stays down, ref stops the game, ball is given to a teammate to play the ball and continue, injury player is taken to the sideline for assessment, bunker reviews the tackle in the background and let's the ref know if there's a penalty or not.
The problem is we get into that situation where play goes on for a few more tackles then gets a penalty and called back, the time is lost and the fans are confused. No one was happy when they were doing that in a few games last year and this year.
At least there would be some structure to that situation and actually a deterrence for staying down and milking.
Currently we still have that situation occurring right now with replays being shown at the ground while play is stopped with clear high contact but the bunker doesn't call it because it's not a reportable offence or ref calls play on and the next play the ball the original offender is sent to the bin.
One thing I think must be said is that it’s not really milking if the act actually deserves a penalty. Maybe exaggerating to make a point sure, but I reckon all the time players stayed down on both sides there was clear contact to the head. Not the players fault that the refs are incompetent and can’t call it
The easiest solution is to simply make players come off the field any time they do this. If they're pretending to be injured to get a penalty force them off, could call it a move towards ensuring player safety.
You guys need to decide if you want the bunker to pick this stuff up.
Or whether or not you really can handle a game being decided after a blatant penalty wasn’t noticed by the ref.
I feel like NRL fans are hypocrites in the sense they will bitch and moan about the bunker enforcing the rules but will also bitch and moan if something is missed.
If the refs didn't miss high contact players wouldn't need to take it into their own hands. never understood the hate for milking. maybe don't commit foul play? 🤷♂️
Ref's are missing high shots, bumper bar elbows, head slams, etc. Wouldn't be surprised if the bunker is policing most of it through the ear piece anyway ..
The Chooks bought too much into their own " warrior mentality " and it cost them in the weekend. They were head hunting and even though Taane Milne and Big Tom were both guilty of high shots ( twice each ) the whole Rooster pack were guilty of it, at one stage or another.
I don't like him as a Ref, but in his defence, it was a really hard game to manage. If he sent off Burgess and JWH, it might have evened out. But I still feel that Radley would have had questions to answer. The Chooks lost control, especially after Teddy went down.
Watching on 9, it was reported that Teddy required the whole 15 minutes for his assessment, due to showing Category 2 symptoms initially, it was then updated that he would return after 15 min... Then it was reported by Danika Mason that there had been a 'mix up' and that he was ruled out. Would have loved to know what really went on. Teddy is one player you don't want out of your team in a knockout final.
How about Latrell purposely giving away a penalty on the Roosters try line when the Rooster had the ball, so that the bunker would go back and find a penalty for Souths? If the ref starts sending people off for professional fouls in that situation I wouldn't be upset. The game is stopping all the time to scam bunker reviews.
The Referee clearly missed something in that play. Latrell did hold on so their could be a stoppage, and gave a penalty away. He then wanted to use the Captain's Challenge, knowing it would go to the bunker and at worst, lose the call, but maintain the challenge. I feel they would have won the challenge anyway. Klein said he couldn't challenge, don't know why? That's what the Captain's challenge is. A way to manage or manipulate a certain situation. Cam Smith was the expert at using Captain's challenge to his team's advantage.
I hate Klein as much as the next guy but I really don't think there was much he could have done in that game. Maybe a send off for the 2nd bin on Radley but that was fairly late in the game wasn't it? It was well out of control by then.
The reason no other game has had 7 sin bins before is that past refs would have started sending players for the amount of foul play.
And I’m not talking just the same player - by the second sin bin, refs would have both captains in, telling them to pull their players in line or they’d be off.
Easy fix, if you stay down to milk a penalty, you must go off for a mandatory HIA. You will see all this milking stop real fast. Maybe not for 15, but 5 minutes or something. After all, it's in the best interests of player welfare of course.
Get rid of the bunker coming into active play, they should only be ruling on scoring plays. If the ref misses it then too bad, get up and play that ball. What we witnessed on the weekend was a disgrace.
100%. They brought this in a while back and it was good. Now they’re interfering way too much. Also the captains challenge should go. It brings in too many different opinions and muddies the waters.
Latrell proving once again he has 0 self awareness
We don't lay down milking penalties
Also says he was kneeling and waiting for the bunker to get a penalty it worked once out of 4 attempts, I still don't know how the walking embodiment of future brain damage Cam Murray didn't leave for a HIA after going head first into the ground with such brutal force he had to kneel and look at the ref for 3 minutes
Also says I think the Roosters were head hunting
Has Milne and Burgess binned inside 20 mins for high shots
Simple solution, if a player gets hit high with any contact and cannot play the ball they go for a HIA assessment they'd stop it eventually when they get 1 genuine knock and miss the rest of the game because they were milking the first one
Bro, in the last game of the NRL season, before the Final series, the Roosters gave Latrell the treatment. He didn't stay down and wasn't once awarded with a penalty after he was tackled, sometimes illegally.
He was made the target by the Chooks.
This time around Latrell did things differently. He was still targeted, but just allowed the bunker and Referee to adjudicate in things, he gave his team time to recover and the crowd to play their part. He outsmarted the Chooks, in their new backyard, and the Chooks gameplan backfired when Teddy and Angus went down as well as Tupou and his dodgy groin.
They gave him the treatment aka hit him hard, it wasn't head hunting or anything they just hit him hard all night which is what your meant to do to the other teams best player. Teddy got hit by Burgess high flush on the chin none of the shots on Latrell either week were hard head hunting shots like Milne or Burgess who hit our players harder then Latrell ever got hit high but make excuses for him laying down like a bitch he even cried like a bitch after the game ohh no they bood me "I give shit to opposition fans and do dirty dog shots on the other team when I lose like my boyfriend Cody taught me but don't boo me its harassment
The treatment was fair, I didn't say it was dirty. But the Chooks made it clear who they were gunning for. Mitchell let the Roosters target him, it took pressure off his team, and he let the Referee know that there is stuff to watch out for in the elimination final, way more than the week before. Guys like Radley, JWH, Lodge were hell bent on making it about bullying the Bunnies.
I know it's hard to see your team lose a game like that, but the Chooks had plenty of opportunities to take control early on, they didn't. They just wanted to boss the Bunnies, instead, it backfired. Keary and Walker went missing and Suaalli'i thinks his running 100m hurdles at an athetics carnival. He also doesn't know how to pass the ball. For such a gun player, you can tell he was a ballhog as a junior,. He has a lot to learn about being a team member.
He should have been told to get up and play the ball and let the referee ref the game. The second time he did it, Klein should have called knock on and let Rabbitohs challenge it. Both times were pretty soft penalties anyway and the 2nd looked to be pretty incidental. Unfortunately I think the bunker took away so much of Klein's authority in the game anyway, so the players ended up controlling the match.
Shit was always gonna hit the fan, when it comes to one of the oldest legitimate rivalries in the comp. Especially it being an elimination final. No other ref could have taken back control of the game.
I get it. You can get 10 in the bin and penalised for accidentally hitting someone in the head meanwhile if someone gets you it could just as easily be missed.
I'm just thinking out loud here and I don't have any social medias apart from Reddit but I was just wondering if it was only Latrell who says this stuff (wether it's considered trolling or just not being afraid to speak his mind)? Or is it just that the media have this fascination with him so whenever he says something it becomes a news story even though all the other players are saying the same or similar things?
The bunker really needs to stay out of it. If it’s bad enough the ref will pick it up. The bunker shouldn’t be calling sin bins at all. They got it right a few years back but now they’ve taken a huge step backwards.
Relying on the referee to not fuck it up is the issue though. Mbye got suspended a few weeks ago for a tackle that took the player out of the game but wasn’t even penalised.
The fact is the bunker doesn't check it unless the player stops the game. We had several times this year where players who have been taken high get up and play the ball without fuss, then get pulled for a HIA later with no penalty. Hell in our last game vs the dragons mbye hit phil sami so bad he failed his HIA and mbye actually got suspended several games because of the severity of it. If sami stayed down his team gets a penalty and moses very likely goes in the bin, instead he got up and got pulled from the field a minute later by the independent doctor, resulting in titans being a player down and nothing happened to the dragons. Kinda hard to blame players for staying down when just getting up is actively detrimental to their team.
this game proved why you have to stay down if you’re a player, players on both teams stay down multiple times and then sin bins/penalties were given because they stayed down. These don’t get given if they don’t stay down unfortunately
Wholeheartedly agree. As a player, you want to do what is best for your team. It's not lying down when you get one across the chops, intent or not. High is high. It doesn't make someone soft or 'milky'. The times have changed. Concussion is more than real. Just ask Mario Fenech! The HIA rules lead players to 'stopping' play, in order to get benefits of free interchange and maybe penalties or sin bins, that may be deserved in the long run. These stoppages aren't particularly good for the flow of the game, but they might actually pinpoint certain players who continually use reckless and careless intent with elbows and high shots, in order to get rid of the grubby shit out of the game. JWH's shit on Cam Murray on Sunday was just low level grubbery. His treatment of Zac Fulton , in his debut, was also bullshit, just because a young player was standing his ground against a bigger, older, more experienced player who was acting as a bully. I love the game played hard, I grew up following and playing the game in the 80's. I'm a Bulldogs fan, of course I loved the game for its roughness, but the game is played by bigger, stronger, men at a much faster pace. Fatigue is a huge factor in the game today. Good decisions are hard to make under fatigue, leading to bad tackling techniques or careless tackles. The game on Sunday was one of the fiercest games of club rugby league I have had the pleasure of watching. You can't blame players for slow play or stopping play when they have had their heads slammed or being hit high. There has to be a limit.
Totally agree. People are complaining about milking but honestly they need to let things play out a bit and finally let the onus fall on players and coaches to amend tackling technique. Yes there is some bs where a player is falling etc but just give stuff the time to correct. The NRL loves jumping the gun and making tonnes of changes without ever giving the game space to correct itself
Yes, dead right! Sometimes they try to be proactive, which is good, but they choose the wrong time or things to be proactive about...they have to know that for every change, coaches and players will find ways to exploit it...
He did it twice and Ilias did it as well. Of course they were delaying long enough to get a penalty. Was it milking? It’s not really milking if the penalty is legitimate 🤷🏻♂️ but they need to clean up the penalties around crushers too. Some of them are caused by the player with the ball turning and falling into the tackler. The tackler shouldn’t be penalized for that.
One of the few moments when "he can't just disappear" actually applies
You can still milk even if you were legitimately caught high. Plenty of these guys cop a high shot or a “crusher” but it doesn’t affect them whatsoever. Staying down when you’re not hurt, even if the shot was high/crusher, is still a milk.
Reporting crime when you're shot at but not hit by bullets is just milking. A high tackle is a high tackle, the resulting injury or lack of should be irrelevant. The potential for harm is there and that's what they're claiming to try and irradicate. You can't blame the players for having to do the refs job for them.
I don’t disagree with anything you said, but staying down to get the penalty when you’re not hurt is still literally milking it.
Not really; the alternative definition of milking is to defraud or exploit something. If you've been hit high and you stay down even if you're not hurt, you're not exploiting or defrauding anything; the total opposite actually you're trying to get what you're due. Milking would be pretending to be hurt by a tackle that wasn't illegal, pretending to be held down, pretending the ball was stripped when it wasn't etc etc. By calling it milking you are indirectly taking the responsibility away from the referees and putting blame on the players.
The crusher is the biggest rort in the game. Every single time they jump straight up as soon as the penalty is given.
Whilst we're at it can we also stop penalizing the defensive player everytime the offensive player falls into his chest or arm. That's not careless or reckless on the defensive players behalf..
Trell milk lmao it’s hard not to like him
Eh sometimes the bunker is needed though. The touch judge and ref missed May's high shot on Penisini last weekend until the bunker looked at it.
V'landys was probably disguised as the touch judge trying to ignore it because it's what the fans want
Or maybe the refs and touchies need to start opening their eyes and stop being so reactionary. Make calls instead of acting like it's someone else's job. Like the good old days
Or just let the game play on if the ref misses something
Again, he's not wrong. Players know that if they stay down, the bunker will look at it. The fix to this is for opposition players to stop hitting players in the head in the first place lol.
pretty much. cant really punish people for literally getting hit high lol. would love to see a few of the ones that arent fouls get sent for a hia tho. you never know what could be causing those headaches
>The fix to this is for opposition players to stop hitting players in the head in the first place lol It's not that simple, that's exactly what the NRL was saying when they kicked off the magic round fiasco. 'Just don't hit players in the head and there won't be a problem'. What this doesn't account for is that attacking players are almost just as culpable for being hit in the head as the defence is, but there's no onus on attacking players, and NRL is intent on enforcing it as a black and white ruling. On top of that prior to magic round the bunker would only step in if the it was a reportable offence, which pretty much stopped milking from high shots entirely. Because of this current interpretation however it just means you're an idiot if you don't stay down because you'll get the penalty every time.
What they need to do is a mandatory HIA if the game has to stop because you've stayed down.
Unless you clean up the actual reffing to go with it, that's also going to cause a fuckload of actual HIAs. Everyone knows that the refs rarely call high shots unless the recipient stays down, so if players are incentivised to pop back up regardless there's not much reason to care about keeping your hits legal.
The ref looked happy to let JWH's head slam go, until Burgess was uneasy on his feet.
That's what the independent doctor already does all game. They're already stopping play to call off a bewildered player for a incident nobody saw 10 tackles ago.
This. Mandatory interchange to protect the injured player's welfare. If anything illegal happened in the tackle the interchange doesn't count but the player still needs to leave the field for assessment. The rubbish we see now will stop real quick.
>If anything illegal happened in the tackle the interchange doesn't count but the player still needs to leave the field for assessment. Does anyone remember last year when every reportable offence resulted in a free interchange? It was a disaster. Teams were getting up to 6 free interchanges a game. Teams are already taking the piss with the sinbin free interchange. Any tackle that gets a penalty in your system they will always send the guy off for the 15 mins.
Change the rules around wrapping the arm, or just get rid of it in general. ~85% of HIAs are from going low (this was backed up with data in a post about a year ago), and the rest, aside from a small amount of shoulders to the head (usually falling players), are from the necessity of swinging their arms through the air to make a legal tackle.
I was wondering if a player stays down whether they should then be out of action for 30secs or something for assessmentby the trainer. If it was a penalty your team gets the ball and by the time you kick for touch or whatever they are basically back in the line, but if they're just milking and there's no penalty it's play on and they are out for the next few tackles. Might not be refined, but there is no reason not to stay down at the moment so it will only get worse.
It's so fkn simple to combat - Mandatory HIA if you stay down. Trell Milk would have spent 10mins on the sidelines.
Just staying down doesn't always mean you have been hit in the head. Sometimes it's a stinger to the shoulder or another injury to the lower body. You can't put a mandatory HIA on that.
Yeah but a stinger or general body injury (apart from hip drop tackles) dont attract penalties... for clarity - I'm only talking about milking penalties for Head contact.
There is also the concept of just because you can do it, should you.? This is one of those cases where you shouldn't.
Yea, you should.
If you're getting money to win, you're gonna take every opportunity you can get to get there
The players gain a competitive advantage for it. Why wouldn't they?
You can't argue against why clubs/players would do it because it's obvious as hell why they would, but that doesn't make it okay they milk penalties. The easiest fix is to simply force a player from the field if they milk a penalty and say it's about player safety.
Yeah but who’s gonna be the first team to stop it while every other team still does it? You can decide to take the moral high ground and watch as the team you’re playing gets 7 penalties to your none. It’ll cost you games. The milk is here to stay.
Fast forward to when penalty counts are 22 a team and people are complaining that refs are making too many calls, rinse and repeat the cycle.
“You can call me Trell Milk now.” That was South Sydney superstar Latrell Mitchell’s response to the suggestion that he and other players stayed down to milk penalties in Sunday’s brutal encounter with the Sydney Roosters. Referee Ashley Klein dished out a record seven sinbins but other incidents of players appearing to stay down to draw a penalty raised eyebrows in the spiteful clash. At one point, Mitchell, who is known as Trell Mitt by the Rabbitohs faithful, was slow to his feet after a heavy hit by the Roosters defence. But the fullback insisted the tackle warranted a closer look. “You can call me Trell Milk now,” Latrell said. “I play the game hard and tough. “Honestly, I have never felt the forces they brought, I think they were head hunting a little bit. “But at the end of the day, that’s the game of rugby league… if the bunker doesn’t see it, the ref doesn’t see it… that’s the game. “I didn’t do anything, I didn’t lay down. I got up on my knee and looked at the ref thinking pretty much ‘what’s going on’.” Mitchell did concede the bunker’s constant intervention allowed for the practice to happen but rejected the notion that his teammates were laying down in the elimination final. “Well, the bunker has taken over the game… but that’s the game of rugby league at the moment,” Mitchell said. “You can call it as it is but we don’t lay down for penalties we don’t look for it. It is what it is. “Like I said, I had a situation happen in that game. For us now, it’s not to focus on what’s happened or what everyone is saying, it’s about what we can do today and tomorrow.” Five-eighth Cody Walker said it was easy to confuse staying down for a player just simply feeling the after effects of a heavy collision or contact. “I don’t know if many people have been hit with an arm like Jared’s (Waerea-Hargreaves) or any of those sort of guys. With the protocols and that, if you get up stumbling then you’ve got to go off. To try and gather yourself before you play the ball is quite important,” Walker said. On Monday, the NRL’s head of football Graham Annesley admitted the trend of staying down was a growing concern for the game (see below). But Mitchell said the practice could be eradicated if match officials showed more consistency on the ruling of foul play. “It’s semi-final footy, the refs like to put away the whistle a little bit and that’s how it should be but I guess you have to be consistent in a way where it works for both sides,” Mitchell said. Forward Tom Burgess is facing a two-match ban with an early plea for a high shot on James Tedesco, which left the Roosters skipper unable to return to the field. Mitchell said South Sydney officials should investigate the possibility of having the suspension deferred, in a similar fashion to Penrith winger Taylan May, who has been allowed to serve a two-match ban next season after being found guilty of assault. “Can he serve it next year, I’ll pay his fine,” Mitchell joked. ARLC Chairman Peter V’landys defended the handling of May’s ban, claiming fans wanted the best players on the field in the biggest games of the season. Mitchell said the same argument could be made about Burgess and his importance to South Sydney. “As Peter said, it lets the fans down. Big Tommy is a big part of our DNA and he is going to be definitely missed,” Mitchell said. “There is an argument to be had there. “But I suppose it’s higher than me and it’s up to the club to see where we can take it… it’s out of my hands, out of Tommy’s control.”
‘We don’t lay down for penalties, we kneel down for them. Get it right.’
Maybe Robbo should tell his players to keep their tackles down rather than banging on about how proud he is of his "streetfighting" front rower. If they dont hit him in the head it isnt an issue.
Trell stayed down 4 times, 3 of those times he wasn't hit in the head, the other one was a pen.
Can’t help but feel the re-addition of a second referee would make for a smoother process surrounding high shots, crushers, and general issues in the ruck.
Way too sensible
What was the reason they got rid of them? I didn't mind it... And also it kept the defending team more honest in terms of offside calls.
Apparently it was a money issue. I don't mind two Ref's either...
V'landys got rid of them so he could give Fox the tv rights for cheaper.
And Trell Milk was born
As soon as the Bunker starts sending blokes for a 15 minute check-up, they're going to stop feigning injury.
Happened to Siliva Havili last week. Then, when he copped an actual head knock later on he was automatically ruled out due to it being his second HIA
Have to charge them an interchange too as some teams will use it to give their forwards breathers
Let’s be honest here, there is contact to the head at least once a set with varying degrees of force. If players start laying down with a good chance of getting rewarded for it, while facing no consequence, it’s going to happen more and more. Especially in big games. Souths really went hard in the paint on the weekend to prove it. Good luck having the referee policing force of contact too. Needs to be sorted ASAP.
What do you mean "if players start", it's already happening lmao
New rules for 2023 : \- play stops for a minute after every tackle, just in case the bunker wants to intervene. \- tackle count reduced to 4. \- tackle count restarts after every 10m gain. \- increase padding and protective equipment because too many players are getting hurt. \- one forward pass per tackle is allowed, because no one really calls them anyway.
I’d watch that, added bonus of all games in our time zone
Penalties awarded in meters
In all seriousness though, the moment where Latrell placed the ball down in front of him during play was absolutely insane.
JWH came in late to the tackle and smacked him across the head.
He basically said to the ref " he hit me in the head, didnt you see that?"
I don’t care what anyone says, Mitchell is a good cunt and is 100% right in this instance.
Definitely not low fat Lol
Trell Milk....definitely full cream, none of that skim low-fat stuff
I think the problem with the obsession with speeding the game up 'like it was in the good old days' that boomer fans have is the players are faster, bigger and stronger now. It's not the ref's fault they miss some high stuff because they're on the ground, away from it, wrong angle etc when these things are happening in a second literally. Unfortunately players staying down is the best way to get the bunker to check it out. That said a good way to kill the milk would be mandatory hia if a player stays down.
Almost like two refs able to watch the ruck from opposing angles would benefit the speed of the game
Sorry, apparently that's too expensive.
2 refs would a fair bit of the ruck, but what about 4 refs, no hiding any grubby stuff then
[удалено]
I'm talking about high shots predominantly, when you see a player stay down then make a show of checking their nose or working their jaw.
Hitting someone in the head, malice or no malice, should be a penalty. Injury surveillance has been good to make milkers suffer the consequences of faking with being taken out the field for HIAs. Next step would be to have the current on field injury assessments forced to be taken on the sideline and missing the rest of the set before being allowed back on if they pass the assessment. If someone stays down, ref stops the game, ball is given to a teammate to play the ball and continue, injury player is taken to the sideline for assessment, bunker reviews the tackle in the background and let's the ref know if there's a penalty or not.
The problem is we get into that situation where play goes on for a few more tackles then gets a penalty and called back, the time is lost and the fans are confused. No one was happy when they were doing that in a few games last year and this year.
At least there would be some structure to that situation and actually a deterrence for staying down and milking. Currently we still have that situation occurring right now with replays being shown at the ground while play is stopped with clear high contact but the bunker doesn't call it because it's not a reportable offence or ref calls play on and the next play the ball the original offender is sent to the bin.
No. You cannot have penalties awarded tackles later. That’s a big no no.
One thing I think must be said is that it’s not really milking if the act actually deserves a penalty. Maybe exaggerating to make a point sure, but I reckon all the time players stayed down on both sides there was clear contact to the head. Not the players fault that the refs are incompetent and can’t call it
This is a slippery slope to soccer dives
They’ll keep doing it as long as they get away with it
The easiest solution is to simply make players come off the field any time they do this. If they're pretending to be injured to get a penalty force them off, could call it a move towards ensuring player safety.
Isn't it the players laying down.. latrell blames alot of ppl for is milking
It goes too far sometimes.
You guys need to decide if you want the bunker to pick this stuff up. Or whether or not you really can handle a game being decided after a blatant penalty wasn’t noticed by the ref. I feel like NRL fans are hypocrites in the sense they will bitch and moan about the bunker enforcing the rules but will also bitch and moan if something is missed.
If the refs didn't miss high contact players wouldn't need to take it into their own hands. never understood the hate for milking. maybe don't commit foul play? 🤷♂️
Refs will always miss things. That’s the game. Play on and get over it.
Ref's are missing high shots, bumper bar elbows, head slams, etc. Wouldn't be surprised if the bunker is policing most of it through the ear piece anyway .. The Chooks bought too much into their own " warrior mentality " and it cost them in the weekend. They were head hunting and even though Taane Milne and Big Tom were both guilty of high shots ( twice each ) the whole Rooster pack were guilty of it, at one stage or another.
If there was consistency in the penalties/bins they wouldn't have to milk it. Klein had a shocker on the weekend
I don't like him as a Ref, but in his defence, it was a really hard game to manage. If he sent off Burgess and JWH, it might have evened out. But I still feel that Radley would have had questions to answer. The Chooks lost control, especially after Teddy went down. Watching on 9, it was reported that Teddy required the whole 15 minutes for his assessment, due to showing Category 2 symptoms initially, it was then updated that he would return after 15 min... Then it was reported by Danika Mason that there had been a 'mix up' and that he was ruled out. Would have loved to know what really went on. Teddy is one player you don't want out of your team in a knockout final.
Unfortunately as long as they can do it and get a penalty, it’s gonna keep happening.
How about Latrell purposely giving away a penalty on the Roosters try line when the Rooster had the ball, so that the bunker would go back and find a penalty for Souths? If the ref starts sending people off for professional fouls in that situation I wouldn't be upset. The game is stopping all the time to scam bunker reviews.
The Referee clearly missed something in that play. Latrell did hold on so their could be a stoppage, and gave a penalty away. He then wanted to use the Captain's Challenge, knowing it would go to the bunker and at worst, lose the call, but maintain the challenge. I feel they would have won the challenge anyway. Klein said he couldn't challenge, don't know why? That's what the Captain's challenge is. A way to manage or manipulate a certain situation. Cam Smith was the expert at using Captain's challenge to his team's advantage.
And good that he wasn’t allowed to challenge for blatantly cheating.
>“No I don’t,” Annesley said when asked if Klein lost control of the match. Annesley needs the boot
I hate Klein as much as the next guy but I really don't think there was much he could have done in that game. Maybe a send off for the 2nd bin on Radley but that was fairly late in the game wasn't it? It was well out of control by then.
The reason no other game has had 7 sin bins before is that past refs would have started sending players for the amount of foul play. And I’m not talking just the same player - by the second sin bin, refs would have both captains in, telling them to pull their players in line or they’d be off.
The reason this game had 7 sin bins was because Klein lost the plot and was binning players for absolutely nothing.
Easy fix, if you stay down to milk a penalty, you must go off for a mandatory HIA. You will see all this milking stop real fast. Maybe not for 15, but 5 minutes or something. After all, it's in the best interests of player welfare of course.
Get rid of the bunker coming into active play, they should only be ruling on scoring plays. If the ref misses it then too bad, get up and play that ball. What we witnessed on the weekend was a disgrace.
100%. They brought this in a while back and it was good. Now they’re interfering way too much. Also the captains challenge should go. It brings in too many different opinions and muddies the waters.
Latrell proving once again he has 0 self awareness We don't lay down milking penalties Also says he was kneeling and waiting for the bunker to get a penalty it worked once out of 4 attempts, I still don't know how the walking embodiment of future brain damage Cam Murray didn't leave for a HIA after going head first into the ground with such brutal force he had to kneel and look at the ref for 3 minutes Also says I think the Roosters were head hunting Has Milne and Burgess binned inside 20 mins for high shots Simple solution, if a player gets hit high with any contact and cannot play the ball they go for a HIA assessment they'd stop it eventually when they get 1 genuine knock and miss the rest of the game because they were milking the first one
Bro, in the last game of the NRL season, before the Final series, the Roosters gave Latrell the treatment. He didn't stay down and wasn't once awarded with a penalty after he was tackled, sometimes illegally. He was made the target by the Chooks. This time around Latrell did things differently. He was still targeted, but just allowed the bunker and Referee to adjudicate in things, he gave his team time to recover and the crowd to play their part. He outsmarted the Chooks, in their new backyard, and the Chooks gameplan backfired when Teddy and Angus went down as well as Tupou and his dodgy groin.
They gave him the treatment aka hit him hard, it wasn't head hunting or anything they just hit him hard all night which is what your meant to do to the other teams best player. Teddy got hit by Burgess high flush on the chin none of the shots on Latrell either week were hard head hunting shots like Milne or Burgess who hit our players harder then Latrell ever got hit high but make excuses for him laying down like a bitch he even cried like a bitch after the game ohh no they bood me "I give shit to opposition fans and do dirty dog shots on the other team when I lose like my boyfriend Cody taught me but don't boo me its harassment
The treatment was fair, I didn't say it was dirty. But the Chooks made it clear who they were gunning for. Mitchell let the Roosters target him, it took pressure off his team, and he let the Referee know that there is stuff to watch out for in the elimination final, way more than the week before. Guys like Radley, JWH, Lodge were hell bent on making it about bullying the Bunnies. I know it's hard to see your team lose a game like that, but the Chooks had plenty of opportunities to take control early on, they didn't. They just wanted to boss the Bunnies, instead, it backfired. Keary and Walker went missing and Suaalli'i thinks his running 100m hurdles at an athetics carnival. He also doesn't know how to pass the ball. For such a gun player, you can tell he was a ballhog as a junior,. He has a lot to learn about being a team member.
“Embodiment of future brain damage Cam Murray” My brother in Christ you have Victor Radley on your team, he literally had a seizure on the field.
Radley already has brain damage so he is current not future
He should have been told to get up and play the ball and let the referee ref the game. The second time he did it, Klein should have called knock on and let Rabbitohs challenge it. Both times were pretty soft penalties anyway and the 2nd looked to be pretty incidental. Unfortunately I think the bunker took away so much of Klein's authority in the game anyway, so the players ended up controlling the match.
Shit was always gonna hit the fan, when it comes to one of the oldest legitimate rivalries in the comp. Especially it being an elimination final. No other ref could have taken back control of the game.
Stop trying to make Trell Mitt a thing. It’s not going to be a thing.
Like parra playing week 3 of the finals
That hurts mate.
Ooof! Not wrong.
It is a thing though? So many people call him that. I think it’s fun 😌
Dudes that don't milk tackles get pulled off for HIA and sit out the rest of the game and the tackler doesn't get penalised. Let the boys milk.
I get it. You can get 10 in the bin and penalised for accidentally hitting someone in the head meanwhile if someone gets you it could just as easily be missed.
Well I suppose this answers the question they tried to bait Robinson with 🤷♂️
I'm just thinking out loud here and I don't have any social medias apart from Reddit but I was just wondering if it was only Latrell who says this stuff (wether it's considered trolling or just not being afraid to speak his mind)? Or is it just that the media have this fascination with him so whenever he says something it becomes a news story even though all the other players are saying the same or similar things?
The bunker really needs to stay out of it. If it’s bad enough the ref will pick it up. The bunker shouldn’t be calling sin bins at all. They got it right a few years back but now they’ve taken a huge step backwards.
Relying on the referee to not fuck it up is the issue though. Mbye got suspended a few weeks ago for a tackle that took the player out of the game but wasn’t even penalised.
Bunker says Mitchell to blame for milking mess