{"id":417935,"date":"2026-02-10T11:52:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-10T11:52:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/417935\/"},"modified":"2026-02-10T11:52:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-10T11:52:09","slug":"leigh-leopards-boss-bemoans-ruck-speed-rule-changes-for-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/417935\/","title":{"rendered":"Leigh Leopards boss bemoans ruck speed rule changes for 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Leigh Leopards boss Adrian Lam has questioned the need for the rule changes around ruck speed heading into 2026, predicting there will be a \u2018hurricane\u2019 with complaints early on in the campaign.<\/p>\n<p>It was confirmed ahead of the start of the 2026 campaign that players would now be forbidden from encroaching within ten metres of any opponent that is waiting for the ball. They must also surrender when an opponent gains possession of the ball.<\/p>\n<p>Players will be penalised more harshly for laying on in the ruck, and in the pre-season action that we\u2019ve seen including the Challenge Cup ties, there have been significantly more play-the-balls per game than in recent seasons.<\/p>\n<p>The new rules mean there will be more pace for attacking players, and more speed in the game in general: with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.loverugbyleague.com\/super-league\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Super League<\/a> likely to be a faster-paced game than it has ever been before.<\/p>\n<p>But the rule changes have had their critics already, and it\u2019s fair to say that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.loverugbyleague.com\/tag\/leigh-leopards\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Leigh<\/a> head coach Lam is among those.<\/p>\n<p>Leigh Leopards coach questions ruck speed rule changes as early season \u2018hurricane\u2019 tipped<\/p>\n<p>The Leopards beat <a href=\"https:\/\/www.loverugbyleague.com\/championship\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Championship<\/a> outfit North Wales Crusaders in the Challenge Cup Third Round on Saturday evening, and are now preparing for their first game of the new Super League campaign at home against Leeds Rhinos on Friday night.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking to the media \u2013 including LoveRugbyLeague \u2013 during the Super League season launch, Lam explained: \u201cThe referees are looking at speeding the ruck up.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat\u2019s what we\u2019ve been told, and I\u2019m not sure if I\u2019m a fan of that.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe game is quick enough as it is, we need to keep the ten metres as it is.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019ll see what happens with that, but no doubt there\u2019ll be a bit of hurricane around Round 4, 5 or 6 about how that\u2019s going.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019ll wait and see.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Leigh Leopards boss Adrian Lam has questioned the need for the rule changes around ruck speed heading into&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":417936,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-417935","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417935","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=417935"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417935\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/417936"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=417935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=417935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=417935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}