It would be a case of now or never for Johnstone tbf. Next time it’ll probably be too late.

Well… another worry for me is that if these silly rule changes do happen over here and not in the NRL - it’s hard enough to stop our premier clubs becoming feeder clubs for NRL sides as it is.

I wouldnt worry, in years to come we wont have any players good enough, we struggle to developed players genuinely good enough for the NRL now,when the new rules fully kick in and youth players arnt allowed to play tackle until u10's, that will put us another 3 year behind in development.

To be honest I'm all for starting contact a bit later so that the development of other skills are prioritised.

Anything to stop junior coaches lining up their teams and endlessly getting them to shout 'SEEEEEEEEETTTTTTTTTT INNNNNN'! And to stop them just giving the ball to the slightly rotund child near the try line just so the coach can enjoy his weekend after the lad scores 4 trys and his u9s win.

Ah RAPIDO, you're one of them. Figures.

I agree seth with regards to junior RL.
football was the same until Howard Wilkinson totally re-wrote the rules.
the game has benefitted massively from those changes

Absolutely Tad. Unfortunately 'some lads dad' just doesn't have the skills or knowledge of development to do the right thing. The trainable age for maximizing fundamental skills is basically just being set fire to in junior rugby. Change the environment to touch or tag and the skills of evasion, passing and support play would greatly improve.

About 15 years ago I took on a team way down the age group 'leagues' physically they were tiny but over time with the right approach these fundamental skills were pretty impressive. I took them a touch comp against some of the teams that physically battered us in the contact league, and we won it.

I know this is about safety but it would be a positive for contact to start a few years later.

I'd recommend anybody who is unfamiliar or curious about Momirovski giving his last game for the Roosters (Elimination Semi v Storm) a watch on NRL.Com. Early in the game the commentary team pick him out as a player who'll be targeted given he hasn't played since round 9 after a shoulder reconstruction. They are right about that, but he really shows what a pro he is. Some great tackles, good scrambling for loose balls, line break for one of the tries, and unlucky not to get a penalty try. In short, exactly the type of player you'd love to play alongside. I'd pair him on the right with Fusitua. Could be a great combination.

To be honest Seth, if the coach is so poor that they focus on what you mention, whilst playing tackle, then its highly unlikely said coach would use the advantages of playing touch/tag to develop other parts of the kids games either.

Disagree on this one, with regards to development, theres nothing you can develop playing touch/tag, that you cant develop playing tackle, theres plenty you can develop playing tackle that you cant develop playing touch/tag.

With regards to safety/long term well being to the kids, thats a different story and somthing i would never claim to know too much about, but if it is somthing that is proved to be beneficial in these areas, then that is the most important thing and well worth holding off the contact for a few year

I'd have to disagree there having coached the game and being in sport development as a career over 20 years. It's not that the coach would be smart enough to 'use the advantages of playing tag' as you put it, they wouldn't have to be, crash ball rugby that's based on the more physical players simply wouldn't work anymore. Have you seen the general state of junior coaching? It largely consists of the set and in nonsense I described early then 2 middle aged blokes hold tackle shields while a queue of 20 kids line up and wait their turn to run into them. In other words, it's bollox.

It's like natural selection, the players would develop the skills of evasion and passing because the environment demands it and physicality gets you nowhere in these adapted versions of the game.

There are not enough quality coaches at junior level to not take short cuts and give the ball to their strongest players to outmuscle the opposition. I've so many examples where this is the case in stalling players development it's unreal. The primary skill in rugby is creating space with the ball, take away the tool of just smashing through it for a while and the softer skills will enhance.