The future of the rugby codes:

On the crisis Footy Show, Sterling said the game itself needed improvements. Rugby has improved thanks to the Experimental Law Variations (ELVs) so could league? Here are a few ideas, not necessarily endorsed by Wally, that could be considered to improve the game. The Toyota Cup would be the perfect vehicle to trial them.

Interchange – reduce it from 12 to say six or employ the rugby union system where once a player is replaced he cannot go back on (in the latter case perhaps an extra reserve may be added).

Scrums – are pathetic time wasters. These guys are bashing the crap out of each other but as soon as a scrum is called suddenly the contest ends. Either allow pushing and have serious scrums or get rid of them entirely.

Video ref – only allow video ref decisions for tries and not for other plays and reviews. An even more dramatic move might be to allow teams a set number, say two, ‘appeals’ for their disallowed tries or opposition’s allowed tries to be looked at by the video ref.

Play before half and full time – again the entire game is a tough contest but suddenly in the last five to 10 seconds suddenly the play slows down and the last ‘tackle’ is usually the player with the ball just running up the opposition and looking at the ref once the opposition player has touched him. Play to the bell.

Dummy half – a lot of criticism has been made about constant dummy half runs leading to boring play. Perhaps employ the touch footy rule where a dummy half can run but if touched (or in this case tackled) the ball is turned over to the opposition. Perhaps an exception may be when in own 20 or 10 metre line. Maybe there could be a rule where a team designates a player that can run from dummy half.

In goal – there’s talk of changing the rule for the team defending a kick so that instead of a drop out it’s a 20m start. People aren’t happy about so many tries being scored from kicks. Another option could be to reduce the points for a try if it comes from a kick to 3.

5 metres – going back to the five metre rule to cut out the wrestle mania on the ground as tacklers wait for their defensive patterns to get set before they allow the tackled player to get up.

Grapple tackle – any sign of the grapple or Hulk Hogan style move is an automatic sin bin, put on report and sent for a year to Azkaban.