By Christian Nicolussi
Former Socceroos coach Graham Arnold made a surprise cameo at South Sydney training on Tuesday, spending time working with the Rabbitohs’ goalkickers including Latrell Mitchell.
Arnold is good friends with Souths coach Wayne Bennett, and was only too happy to accept an invite from the supercoach to give his feedback.
The 61-year-old Australian soccer legend worked with half a dozen NRL clubs 20 years ago, including Wests Tigers trio Benji Marshall, Brett Hodgson and Pat Richards, Penrith’s Ryan Girdler, St George Illawarra’s Ben Hornby – now a Souths assistant – and Manly’s Ben Walker. Arnold was also flown to Brisbane by Bennett to work with Darren Lockyer.
Though footballs and rugby league balls are different shapes, Arnold said the kicking principles remained the same.
“I met with Wayne last week, and he asked me to come down and look at their goalkickers, and I was only too happy to help,” Arnold told this masthead. “It was just nice to be back out on the field. It’s what I miss about football coaching. That’s something I really want to get back into.
“But I enjoyed the morning at Souths. I’ll probably head down there again next week. If I can help them, that’s great. The balls are different, but the most important thing is your mindset, and being able to nail a kick – be it a penalty in football, or a goal in rugby league – in front of thousands of fans.”
Wayne Bennett and Graham Arnold at South Sydney training on Tuesday.Credit: Michael Pantaleone/South Sydney Rabbitohs
In one drill at Heffron Park, Arnold made several players line up a kick from the corner post and aim at the upright.
While Arnold said Richards had the biggest kick he had seen, he was also impressed by the power generated by Mitchell’s left foot.
“He has an outstanding technique,” Arnold said. “But I believe he has the quality and ability to get his goalkicking percentages to 80 per cent or above.”
Mitchell has kicked 159 from 216 goal attempts during his five seasons at Souths for a strike rate of 73.6 per cent. Jamie Humphreys, Matt Humphries and Isaiah Tass also spent about an hour working with Arnold.
The former Socceroos coach says he is ready for a return to football coaching.Credit: Michael Pantaleone/South Sydney Rabbitohs
Damien Cook and Dean Hawkins shared the goalkicking for Souths in the final game of last season, but are no longer at the club, while Fletcher Myers also helped with the important job.
Arnold resigned as Socceroos coach last September, but is keen to return to his real love “after a good break. I’m ready to get back into it”.
The radical rule proposal to bring consistency to sin-binnings for high tackles
Christian Nicolussi
Players will be sent to the sin bin up to 15 minutes after committing a high tackle that forces an opponent out of a game with concussion under a radical proposal put forward by a handful of NRL coaches.
Hoping to achieve consistency when it comes to punishing high tackles, the coaches approached the governing body late last month to suggest testing a new rule as early as the pre-season trials, which begin on Friday.
Some coaches have proposed a new rules to deal with high tackles and sin-bins.Credit: Getty
Fans were left frustrated and confused at times last season by a perceived lack of consistency in imposing penalties on players guilty of high tackles.
One of the most controversial examples involved the New Zealand Warriors, when Roger Tuivasa-Sheck was knocked out by a high shot from Canterbury skipper Stephen Crichton, who remained on the field.
Crichton was subsequently hit with a grade-two careless high tackle charge by the match review panel, and NRL referees boss Graham Annesley later admitted the on-field officials had erred in not sending him to the sin bin.
Referees still have the option to send a player straight from the field if they deem a high tackle could have caused serious injury.
But under the new proposal put forward by select coaches, the sin bin would only be used if the tackled player failed a head injury assessment. The player will remain on the field until the HIA results are made known.
Even if a player needed the maximum 15 minutes to undergo concussion testing protocols, and failed, play would be stopped and the offender given a ten-minute time-out.
For example, if Penrith’s Nathan Cleary tackled Manly’s Tom Trbojevic high in the 20th minute, and Trbojevic failed his HIA in the 35th minute, only then would Cleary be sent to the bin.
“It’s all about trying to get more consistency in terms of what is a sin bin and what is not a sin bin when it comes to high tackles,” one club official who was aware of the situation but not authorised to speak publicly told this masthead.
Fans will question the fairness of a situation where an offending player scored a try while still on the field only to subsequently be sent to the bin when a tackled player failed an HIA, or whether referees should go as far to send a player off if the tackled player did not return.
One NRL coach, who had not heard about the proposal late on Monday and spoke on the condition of anonymity, asked what would stop clubs trying to hit a star player with a high tackle late in a game if they knew there would be no immediate sin-binning until the HIA results were in.
The NRL were contacted but declined to comment on the proposals.
Even if the rule change is rushed in for the Pre-season Challenge, and receives positive feedback, the ARL Commission would not rubber-stamp any tweaks to the laws of the game until the start of the 2026 season because they have already committed to no rule changes for this year.
The only messaging that has been received in clubland is that referees plan to crack down on sloppy play-the-balls in the early rounds. This masthead highlighted last August that officials had failed to punish Penrith for a string of illegal play-the-balls when they steamed home late to beat Parramatta.
The obstruction rule will also be a focus, with referees told to reward good attacking play rather than poor defensive reads where a defender appears to be taken out.