{"id":379804,"date":"2025-12-30T06:14:13","date_gmt":"2025-12-30T06:14:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/379804\/"},"modified":"2025-12-30T06:14:13","modified_gmt":"2025-12-30T06:14:13","slug":"nrl-rule-changes-flagged-for-2026-nrl-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/379804\/","title":{"rendered":"NRL rule changes flagged for 2026 – NRL News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Canterbury Bulldogs<\/a> director of football Phil Gould has revealed more rule changes could be coming the NRL’s way in 2026.<\/p>\n

Taking to his X (formerly known as Twitter) account, Gould suggested the game could be about to change again.<\/p>\n

“Rule changes…” Gould wrote.<\/p>\n

“Word on the street suggests, we have plenty of rule changes heading out way…<\/p>\n

“Funny game rugby league.”<\/p>\n

The three-line social media post could be hinting at changes around the kick-off, which has been an area under the microscope in recent times as head knocks and concussions have become an increasingly large issue for the code.<\/p>\n

The idea of forcibly shorter kick-offs, or scrapping them altogether, has been floated in recent times, with the NRL<\/a> weighing up all options following a rise in the number of head clashes when forwards take the first hit up of a set off the dead ball line.<\/p>\n

The NRL<\/a> has already seen rule changes around kick-offs in recent times, with teams encouraged into short kick-offs and drop outs by rules which mean they avoid a penalty when it goes wrong.<\/p>\n

News Corp are reporting four key rule changes are being considered by the code.<\/p>\n

Kick-offs<\/p>\n

While kick-offs are expected to remain, it’s understood the team conceding a try will be given the right to decide whether to kick-off or receive the football in the following set.<\/p>\n

Match day squads<\/p>\n

Teams are set to be increased from 17 with an 18th man to 19. This will be done with interchanges to remain at eight.<\/p>\n

Teams will have greater flexibility to determine their match day squads, and will be less reliant on injuries not causing havoc or ruining games.<\/p>\n

Seven-tackle sets<\/p>\n

Seven-tackle sets were initially brought in to penalise teams for kicking the ball dead, however, knock ons in the in goal have wound up having the same result.<\/p>\n

This will be removed moving forward per the report, with players knocking on over the goal line in the act of scoring no longer giving away a tackle zero.<\/p>\n

Six again<\/p>\n

The six again rule is set to be expanded to allow teams to receive the go ahead set restart rather than a penalty when an offence is committed outside their own 20-metre zone.<\/p>\n

Previously, this was the 40-metre line.<\/p>\n

The NRL<\/a> have not indicated rule changes are coming for 2026, but typically confirm the status of the rule book for the upcoming season in January, meaning an announcement should be imminent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Canterbury Bulldogs director of football Phil Gould has revealed more rule changes could be coming the NRL’s way…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":268335,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-379804","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379804","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=379804"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379804\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/268335"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=379804"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=379804"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=379804"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}