The ‘captain’s challenge’ as proposed by the NRL will be tried out in the All Stars and Charity Shield marquee pre-season fixtures after being temporarily approved by the ARL Commission, as reported by NRL Media.
With the new rule change set to be trialled, teams will now have the opportunity to challenge with the NRL video bunker on dispute rulings.
The intended result of this rule is to take the pressure off the referees and remove errors in the game.
A set time for the challenges has yet to be decided, but the impression is a period of 10 or 15 seconds will be the time that is trialled.
With the new rule being presented to ARL chairman Peter V’landys and his board on Thursday, the captain’s challenge will be put forward and further discussed with the clubs, the RLPA and broadcasters before ultimately a decision will be made on whether to bring the rule into the 2020 NRL season.
All eyes will be on the trialled captains challenge rule during the All-Stars game on Friday February 22nd, and will again be on show the following week in the Rabbitohs-Dragons Charity Shield fixture in Mudgee.
Under the new rule, once play has stopped whether that be at a scrum, penalty, handover of possession 20m restart or a goal line drop out, captains will have the opportunity to call for the bunkers intervention, with only the one incorrect challenge allowed each game.
Decisions are unable to be challenged while the ball is in play.
If a team wins their challenge, the challenge will be retained. If a team loses the challenge and the decision on the field is upheld, the team will have no further challenges to use.
If an incident occurs but the on-field umpire rules play-on, for instance when a team gains possession through a knock on, the ruling on the field will stand.
The rule is brought in to prevent clear and obvious errors from taking place and playing a huge part in the game, which will potentially limit the scrutiny placed upon the referees.
NRL head of football Graham Annesley put forward a case on Thursday on just how the new captains challenge will work after the idea being explored by the ARLC in December.
“Fans have walked away in the past feeling as though there were errors that affected their team,” Annesley said.
“The Commission is very keen on it from that point of view as an innovation in our game. It’s intended to try and capture those obvious errors.
“If a team decided to use it with a discretionary call by a referee where things are unlikely to have a resolution one way or another or they risk making a wrong challenge they obviously lose it.
“It’s a tactical operation that coaches and players will have to decide how and when to use it. I think it’s going to have little difference to stoppages or the elapsed time in games.”
After a survey set in October last year for the NRL.com’s State of the game, more than 18,000 people responded voting the captains challenge as the more desired rule change.
