Why ping-pong?

[Robert Goodman]

Originally Posted by bellnier

Hi Bob. What a confusing post! Are you talking about an increase in tactical kicking in open play? Or an increase in penalty kicks as a result of some 'new' law as suggested in the second half of your post? I don't recall any ELV specific to rucking that would increase penalty calls...not that there needs to be. My general impression is that more penalties come from rucks than any other phase...hands in, diving, not binding, offsides, etc, etc. As for ping-pong...I'm not seeing an increase, in general, at the local level here. Hmmm.

If you haven't seen an increase in non-tactical kicking since the period in the 1990s the poster from alt.fan.cecil-adams wrote of, then you can't be of use answering the question.

To clarify what I asked in this thread, let's suppose there was an increase in non-tactical kicking, i.e. "ping pong" as teams unartfully dump the ball down into the other end, and that the trend was the result of some laws change, as rumored (from someone's recollection of an on-air sports commentor) on alt.fan.cecil-admas. My question then is, what was the law change that resulted in the tactical change? It would seem most likely that some change at rucks that would have decreased the chances of retaining possession for another phase would increase the tendency to kick the hot potato away.