Castleford Tigers: Coach Powell keen to see new ideas come into game

THE RUGBY Football League (RFL) are believed to be considering introducing golden point extra time for drawn games, but Castleford Tigers coach Daryl Powell is backing an alternative proposal.
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In Australia’s NRL games go into sudden-death when the scores are level after 80 minutes, but Powell said: “If you have golden point you know it’s going to be bang, bang, bang, bang. You have seven tackles and you know you’re going to be within shooting distance and it’s just a drop-goal shootout, but a golden try might create a little bit more.

“I think [Leeds Rhinos chief executive] Gary Hetherington brought it up as I understand it. It would be a really good idea if you were going to do it as you’d see positive play. That would be an interesting move forward, but whether they do or not I’m not sure.”

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Another NRL rule under consideration is the ‘shot clock’. Teams are penalised if they take longer than 30 seconds over a conversion, drop out or to feed a scrum and Powell believes that would be “great for the sport”.

Daryl PowellDaryl Powell
Daryl Powell

He said: “We had Huddersfield under pressure last week and they were taking a long time to take drop-outs. It will speed it up a fair bit.”

Powell is also in favour of referees cracking down on play-acting. He added: “There’s quite a lot of players within certain teams who milk penalties and I think that has to be stopped. I just don’t agree with it at all. It’s like diving in football for me. That would keep the ball in play a fair bit more I think if we cut those out.

“Referees have to be better at picking them. They should know who it is. They should know who’s going to do the double flop to the floor. There’s a lot of arm-trapping with certain teams and actually rotating people’s joints when you’ve got the ball which I think is really dangerous.

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“It’s those that need to be recognised. They both really need to be taken out of the sport.”

Powell said he would support axing the free-play, which he believes slows the game and he believes Tigers would cope well if the number of substitutes was reduced from 10 to eight.

“If they do I won’t have too much of a problem as we’re a pretty fit group,” he said. “We have players who have fair bit of durability about them.”