We're seeing a more attacking game this season, which is a great thing for the fans: If you're a fan of the game - or an NRL official -- you want to see tries and excitement; you certainly don't want to see a game like the 2014 Grand Final, when Souths beat the Dogs in a match that was just a forward battle. No passes, kick the ball to the corner and wait for the opposition to make a mistake; that's not what anyone other than fans of the winning team wants to see. The game this season encourages teams to play more football, and it's much more entertaining to watch - to the point that it seems like more points are being scored even if, after Round 7, we have seen 78 points fewer.

The point I'm making is that teams can no longer look simply to strangle the opposition, with the games this weekend between Melbourne and Manly, and the Dragons and Cowboys, each a prime example. Melbourne, especially, have been the best defensive team of the past 10 years, but they conceded 26 points. Using those games as an example, any team that can get 80 percent completion has a chance of winning a football game. And that means that each team in theory is in the game at all times.

Jason Nightingale of the Dragons. Matt King/Getty Images

If you're a fan who goes to the game, your side can be behind on the scoreboard but there is a chance of still winning the game; the Dragons led 28-4 at halftime on Saturday, and they looked to have the game won, but the Cowboys shredded them in the second half and had every chance at the death to force golden point. That knowledge, that you're never out of the game if you keep completing, encourages teams to play football, it encourages teams to pass the football, and that's what we want to see.

Obviously the reduction of the interchange has had a big input into this, but also the way the teams attack as the game has evolved. The teams that play North-South -- running really direct towards the try line -- are the teams who are scoring lots of points. If you look at the Dragons last year, they scored just 341 points in their 24 games at an average of 14.2 ppg; they were horrible to watch, and only the Eels and Knights averaged fewer points per game. This year, they're leading the competition and average 27 points per game.

NRL Points Scored After Round 7 (2017) P F A +/- Pts 1. Dragons 7 191 104 87 12 2. Storm 7 134 85 49 12 3. Sharks 7 148 86 62 10 4. Roosters 7 138 116 22 10 5. Raiders 7 182 123 59 8 6. Broncos 7 134 105 29 8 7. Bulldogs 7 110 116 -6 8 8. Cowboys 7 139 152 -13 8 9. Sea Eagles 7 150 143 7 6 10. Rabbitohs 7 122 154 -32 6 11. Warriors 7 118 150 -32 6 12. Panthers 7 126 135 -9 4 13. Eels 6 102 126 -24 4 14. Wests Tigers 6 88 166 -78 4 15. Titans 7 156 206 -50 2 16. Knights 7 110 181 -71 2

NRL Points Scored After Round 7 (2016) P F A +/- Pts 1 Broncos 7 188 73 115 12 2 Cowboys 7 199 91 108 10 3 Sharks 7 169 112 57 10 4 Eels 7 128 75 53 10 5 Storm 7 128 110 18 10 6 Bulldogs 7 140 112 28 8 7 Raiders 7 139 174 -35 7 8 Rabbitohs 7 152 139 13 6 9 Titans 7 150 152 -2 6 10 Panthers 7 131 141 -10 6 11 Warriors 7 164 180 -16 6 12 Sea Eagles 7 128 152 -24 6 13 Dragons 7 59 142 -83 6 14 Wests Tigers 7 148 157 -9 4 15 Knights 7 92 229 -137 3 16 Roosters 7 111 187 -76 2

The game continues to evolve, and you've got to stay on top of that evolution. It's a very attack-oriented game of football at the moment, where you have to run hard - which is pretty simple for your forwards to do -- get some quick play the balls and have halves who can play nice and direct to get over the advantage line. Using the league-leading Dragons as an example again, last year Benji Marshall played very sideways and they didn't score many tries; this year, their forwards are laying a platform and their halves are more direct ...

The reduced number of interchanges means the traditional four-big man bench is gone; there's now a smaller guy on the bench, who might be a dummy-half or reverse 40-type of guy, which means the attacking thrust is there for the full 80 minutes. There's also fewer three-man tackles this year than there in the past couple of years -- because the pace of the game is too fast - and that's great as I don't want to go to a game of football and see three men in every tackle turning it into an ugly, boring 10-6 sort of scoreline.

I want to go to a game of football and see: Can you defend under a bit of pressure, can you attack and create an overlap and if you're then good enough with the vision required and the necessary execution at pace. That's what we're seeing so I like the game where it currently sits at the moment. It's great for the product, and it's great for the players in the way it's encouraging them to perform. They need to improve their skill, and the sides that really work hard on the skills rather than just set-play stuff will be in best contention to win the competition.

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The sides that have got the key spine -- the 1-6-7-9, are very important -- traditionally play in the Grand Final, while the teams that eventually miss the finals have only got two of the four. It's still very important to have those four key players in your football side, mixed in with strong front-rowers, but, now, good wingers have also become really important to a football side; probably in the past five years, you wanted the best strike centres in the competition but now you want the best winger in the competition because they do lots of runs and score a lot of tries.

The upshot of all this change means I'm sitting here now as a fan thinking I've got no idea who is going to win the competition, which is unbelievable; and that's a great thing for our game, the fact that we're seven weeks into the comp and it is open to absolutely anyone.

The interchange does that, and so does the salary cap. We've had some talks the past few weeks about getting rid of the salary cap, but if we do that we go to the European soccer model where you generally get the same four sides competing every year.