While the golden point field goal won't disappear this season, the number of attempts at them will most certainly decline.
The Storm beat the Sea Eagles with a one pointer in extra time on Saturday
night at Brookvale Oval and didn't realise until well after the game the danger the new rules pose to these kicks.
In 2014, any team which kicks the ball dead will see the opposition restart play on zero tackle at the 20 metre line.
Late in a game, when players are tired and replacements are at a minimum, it is easy to carry the ball deep into the opposition territory.
Now, with an additional tackle from a 20 metre restart following a field goal attempt which failed, it is easier for a team to set a tackle in front of the posts against a retreating defence and kick a one pointer.
In other words, a failed field goal at one end of the field is likely to result in a successful one at the other end.
Storm half Ben Roberts attempted a field goal in extra time against Manly but missed.
Captain Cameron Smith then attempted one which was touched in flight and therefore resulted in a goal-line drop out.
Smith was successful with a field goal in the following set of six.
However, if a Manly player had not touched the ball and it missed, sailing over the dead-ball line, play would have restarted with the Sea Eagles having possession at the 20-metre line with seven tackles.
Only after the game, during the post mortems in the dressing room, did Storm coach Craig Bellamy and his assistants realise the additional punishment which comes this season from a failed field goal.
While Bellamy was surprised to learn Smith had not kicked one since high school, he was more focussed on the fact he had sent out a message to kick a field goal, unaware of the implications of the new rule.
Regular halfback Cooper Cronk was missing from the game and will also have absorbed the danger of erratic attempts.
In a final round match against the Titans last year, Cronk made five field goal attempts in extra time before being successful.
This year, it's likely the speculative field goals will disappear and no team will attempt one until right in front from a deep position with decoys.
Unless, of course, the biggest variable in football kicks in ... the player's brain.
It's easy for former coaches and broadcasters to pontificate on what NRL players should do in a game, particularly after they have engaged in a brutal battle for 80 minutes.
Factor in that some of them have been playing for over a decade and the new rules were introduced late in the off-season.
The Sea Eagles did demonstrate during the trials that they had studied the new rules, running the ball on the last tackle, aware that a kick which goes dead results in the opposition having a 20-metre tap on zero tackle.
Yet they did not do it once in the round one game.
The Sea Eagles have several veteran players destined to achieve a number of milestones this season in terms of tries scored and games played, but this merely demonstrates how easy it is to lock into a game mindset.
I still recall admonishing Wests captain Tom Raudonikis for not kicking a field goal in the first first grade game I ever coached.
It was against Easts in 1978 and Ron Coote scored a last-minute try.
Tommy looked at me with those big, honest eyes and said with an innocence which both endures and is loveable, "I didn't think of it."
This was a man who had played a decade of top grade games, during which field goals were so prolific, their value had been reduced to one point.
The 1978 game was, like now, the opening match to a season.
Players forget their skills during a two-week break. Surely you can excuse a loss of memory about rules introduced late in an off-season?
Rugby league is a war game. It takes years to build an army and it takes time to develop a team and accommodate new rules of engagement.
Captains and coaches, like field marshals, forget things in the heat of battle and we armchair generals should never forget it.
Roy Masters
http://www.smh.com.au/rugby-league/league-news/the-golden-rule-for-extra-time-dont-miss-20140311-hvhaq.html
