St George Illawarra captain Ben Hunt has opted not to praise the NRL's new restart rules, stating that promoting a spike in short dropouts is only likely to make the game more predictable.
This week, NRL Head of Football Graham Annesley announced that the league would no longer be seeking to penalise sides for illegal restarts, with games instead restarting with opposition play the balls.
Previously, teams would receive penalties following incorrect restarts - a position Hunt has claimed he wished was still the status quo.
โObviously they're trying to get teams to go for short dropouts nearly every time. You'd be silly if you don't,โ Hunt was quoted by News Corp.
โThe only time teams weren't going for it was when they were down by two or they were up by two because you'd give them a free penalty (if you got it wrong).
โI think the biggest thing is that teams will just go for short dropouts every single time.
โI don't know (if it's a good thing), I'm a bit undecided on that.
โI like the fact that teams go for short dropouts, but I don't think we needed to change the rule. There needs to be a penalty if you get your kick wrong.
โI feel like it's unnecessary, but we get plenty of unnecessary rule changes so we just roll with it.โ
Hunt's head coach, Shane Flanagan, echoed his skipper's concerns, claiming a near-certain two points would always beat coming away with none.
โIt's probably going to take a little bit of the emphasis away from making sure you kick it 10 (metres) and that it doesn't go out on the full because you don't get penalised for it now,โ the premiership-winning steward pressed.
โSides are just going to have a crack at it now because there's no penalty for not getting it right.
โThere'll be a lot of shorter, along the ground, powerful kicks trying to find the touchline because the refs aren't going to march over and give you a penalty in front of the posts.
โI like a bit of tradition in the game, and that's an art to do a short dropout.
โBut in the back of your mind, you know that if you don't get it to go 10 metres then you're going to give the opposition two points.
โThat's not there anymore so it's changed the game a little bit.
โSometimes I'd want the two points. I don't want the penalty 10 metres away over there. I still want the penalty.โ
Hunt and Flanagan will earn their first opportunity to get their head around the league's ammendments when they do battle against South Sydney in the annual Charity Shield clash.
