XML::Rules is infinitely better than XML::Simple. You don't seem to understand that a tag is not fully 'parsed' until the end of the tag is reached. If you want to catch the start of the tag (along with its attributes), then use a start tag rule (either prefix the tag with "^", or use the 'start_rules' argument).

This is sensible because you cannot pass the contents of inner tags up to the outer tag rules (which is possible with XML::Rules) until the end tag of the outer XML tag is reached.