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Tony Smith describes six again as a “horrible rule” as his Hull KR lose to “miles ahead” St Helens

Hull KR Head Coach Tony Smith has admitted he believes the set restart law in the sport is a “horrible rule”.

His side were undone in their latest outing by a rampant St Helens team 42-8 at Sewell Group Craven Park, their third defeat from four so far this season.

However, Smith was critical of the set restart law, having seen plenty awarded to both sides on the night.

“It is a horrible rule. We are now seeing the real extent of it. When it was first introduced here, we were all excited as we now have less penalties.

“But every coach will tell you, if they are honest enough, they would rather a slow play the ball and more set restarts than a fast play the ball and away you go and you are on the back foot and you get rammed back up the rest of the field.

“Without instructing players to do it, it is one of those rules that has blown up in our face, when it was a full penalty, players would use to get filthy is somebody held another player down for too long before being marched up the field, now they are common.”

“Any time you get the opposition under pressure, you just go for a slow play the ball. It is one of those horrible rules that we all jumped on the bandwagon and thought was great until we are actually see it all unfold again.”

However, despite any disagreement with any current laws of the game, Smith has recognised that his side were not good enough on a technical level and labelled St Helens as “miles ahead” than the rest of the league.

He added, “I am a bit disappointed by our performance. I did not think we put too much together that could be a serious enough challenge but credit to St Helens for that.

“They are a good team and from what I have seen so far, they are miles ahead of anything I have seen so far in terms of quality.

“It was good to see, obviously not to be on the receiving end of it but good to see early on in the season and it sets a bit of a benchmark to go chasing after it.

“They certainly put us under pressure and their line speed was incredible, compared to every other team in the competition.

“We are nowhere near it. They were just relentless, they kept on doing it repeatedly.

“There could have been another ten penalties in the game and it would not have mattered. We would not have scored any more points, they just kept at it and all the more credit to them.”

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