Law Discussion - from Premiership & Top 14

We have a few short incidents from the English Premiership matches between Bristol and Wasps and between Sale and Leicester and the Top 14 match between Toulouse and Clermont Auvergne., all intense, closely contested matches.

We have earlier discussed the penalty try in the Bristol-Wasps match.

In that match there was a penalty for off-side at a ruck. Unfortunately for the referee the television camera was in line and able to draw a line through the back foot on the Bristol side and the Bristol backs looked well on-side. But it cost them three points. It is hard on the referee if the centres suddenly bolt just when he – or the touch judge – looks up. But it emphasises the onus of certainty that rests on a referee with all his decisions.

1. The holy innocent

“Not even the player knows what it was for.”

Have you heard that before when a player is penalised and looks hurt? The implication is that the referee got it wrong.

Have you ever seen a player put up his hand to acknowledge guilt?

a. There is a tackle/ruck which Bristol win. Their scrumhalf Brian O’Riordan sees a gap and darts ahead. Lying on his back at the side of the tackle/ruck, parallel to the goal-line, is Simon Shaw of London Wasps. He looks up, sees O’Riordan, lifts his left leg so that his foot strikes O’Riordan’s knee. O’Riordan falls.

The referee penalises Shaw and gives him a yellow card. The big man is all injured innocence.

Heaven only knows why!

He was wrong and the referee was right.

b. Ollie Smith of Leicester Tigers is tackled and Sebastien Chabal of Sale Sharks goes in to contest the ball but a Tiger arrives and clearly there is a ruck. Chabal falls down, still contesting the ball and lying down he pulls the ball back to his side.

The referee penalises him, saying that it was a ruck.

Chabal is all injured innocence, but he was in the wrong for pulling the ball back when he was no longer on his feet. He may well also have had hands in the ruck.

He may have been confused by the referee’s call, for when he was on his feet and contesting the ball the referee called: “Off your feet.” Chabal could be forgiven for believing that that did not apply to him because he was on his feet at the time.

2. Off-side on-side

Leicester Tigers win a tackle ruck and pass back to Aaron Mauger who drops for goal on the Sale 10-metre line. Sebastien Chabal of the Sale Sharks charges the kick down and the ball ricochets off to Ben Kay of the Tigers who is a good `12 metres in front of the place where Mauger dropped at goal.

Kay grabs the ball and charges.

Play goes on.

OK?

Yes.

Chabal is not a player waiting to play the ball nor is the ball landing. Chabal is a player who plays the ball, and that puts Kay on-side.

Law 11.3 (c) Intentionally touches the ball. When an opponent intentionally touches the ball but does not catch it, the off-side player is put on-side.

Law 11.4 (f) The 10-metre law does not apply when a player kicks the ball and an opponent charges down the kick, and a team-mate of the kicker who was in front of the imaginary 10-metre line across the field then plays the ball. The opponent was not ‘waiting to play the ball’ and the team-mate is on-side.

3. Shocking decision

Toulouse, clad in black, form a maul. The maul splinters and a group of four Toulouse players charges ahead. When they do so there is no Clermont Auvergne player amongst the moving black shirts. The man in possession and in front of the black shirts is prop Daan Human. Young Clermont Auvergne lock Loic Jacquet darts forward, grabs Human, and pulls him to ground. The referee allows play to go on.

The English commentators are upset.

Commentator 1: “He just brought the maul down.”

Commentator 2: “The referee must have seen that.”

Byron Kelleher is addressing the referee forcefully with word and gesture.

Commentator 2: “Shocking decision by the referee. I don’t know what he was watching.”

Commentator 1, during a replay: “Look at that. A Clermont player has gone to ground and dragged the maul down with him. That was an appalling decision by the referee. I think that has cost them an opportunity to win the game.”

There is more.

In the first half Clermont Auvergne have a line-out near the Toulouse line. They form a maul and drive it ahead till suddenly prop Martin Scelzo with the ball and with scrumhalf Pierre Mignoni hanging onto him breaks off and surges over the line for a try.

If a Toulouse player, say Thierry Dusautoir, had tackled Scelzo and stopped him, would those commentators have complained that Dusautoir had pulled a maul down – and perhaps asked for a penalty try.

Does not Human do the same in the incident which evoked much indignation.

Human and his men had splintered off the maul. They were not a maul because there were no Clermont Auvergne players in it. Then Jacquet sacks Human.

Was he pulling a maul down?

4. And the ball stopped rolling

Jason Strange of Bristol, inside his own half, hoofs the ball downfield. It bounces and rolls on and on, over the Wasps goal-line and into the in-goal, losing impetus as it rolls.

Mark van Gisbergen, the Wasps’ fullback, monitors its progress.

The ball eventually runs out of energy and stops just short of the dead-ball line. Van Gisbergen waits for it to stop, puts a foot over the dead-ball line, picks up the ball and takes it back over the dead-ball line where he grounds it. He then claims a scrum where Strange kicked the ball.

The referee explains that the ball had stopped and so it was a drop-out.

Right?

Yes.

Strange had not kicked it dead; Van Gisbergen had made it dead.

5. How do you tap?

Time is up, the score is 23-all and Bristol are penalised. There is no time for a line-out and so Daniel Cipriani decides to tap and go.

He holds the ball in his hand, lifts his left foot to the ball and taps the ball, still held in his hand, with his left boot.

Play goes on.

OK?

No.

Law 21.4 (c) A clear kick. The kicker must kick the ball a visible distance. If the kicker is holding the ball, it must clearly leave the hands. If it is on the ground, it must clearly leave the mark.

Pedantic?

Well, it is the law and kicking the ball as the law requires demands just a bit of extra skill.