Law Discussion - Heineken Cup, Week 4
The weather was better and some of the rugby so thrilling, especially when London Wasps and Clermont Auvergne played their return match. Inevitably we have some law points to talk about.
1. Management
Last week we spoke about the way a referee talks to players, an important part of man management. The referee in the Wasps-Clermont Auvergne match was an excellent example of an acceptable way to communicate – clear, brief, firm and polite.
All good sportsmen seem to have more time to do things than those who are not as good. The same it seems is true of the top referee. This referee had time and awareness to talk French to a Francophone Auvergnat and English with an Anglophone Auvergnat. His manner was calm and matter-of-fact and there were no barked commands or dictatorial gestures which treated players like errant curs. It was so good.
It went beyond that. He was able to bustle the game along. Watch the referee who struts and poses and see how the game breaks down. Watch the one who bustles things along and see how much more play you get.
In that same match there were 21 scrums. Not one collapsed and not one was reset. There were neither free kicks nor penalties. When Munster played the Scarlets, a chopped up match, there were 21 scrums with 10 resets, 5 collapses, a free kick and a penalty. That meant nearly as many extra awards as the award of the scrum itself.
When Edinburgh played Leinster, Leinster had seven put-ins to scrums, six of them five metres from the Edinburgh line. Not one of those six five-metre scrums collapsed.
The difference may, of course, be an accident. It may also be good management.
2. The hooking flank
Ulster put the ball into a scrum which is under some pressure from the Ospreys. The ball sticks in the tunnel of the scrum and flank Kieron Dawson swung out a left leg, put his foot into the tunnel and nudged the ball back.
Play went on.
It should not have gone on.
Law 20.9 (f) Locks and flankers: Staying out of the tunnel. A player who is not a front-row player must not play the ball in the tunnel.
Penalty: Free Kick
Although this was early in the match and there had been no trouble with scrums, the referee was on the tighthead side which was not far from the touch-line where the helpful touch judge was. No doubt the referee did not see the flank’s intrusion.
This happened after 5 minutes.
3. Dawson dives
Matt McCullough of Ulster is tackled and brought to ground. A tackle ruck forms with Marty Holah of the Ospreys going at the ball. The referee calls out: “Hands off, 7.” Holah obeys.
The ball comes back from the tackle ruck past the scrumhalf Kieran Campbell who turns, bends and picks up the ball. On his feet Holah launches himself forward and tackles Campbell who places the ball back from his body. Big Adam Jones of the Ospreys bends to pick up the loose ball but Campbell fiddles with it and Kieran Dawson dives on it to cut it off.
The referee penalises Dawson.
Right?
Yes.
Law 15.6 OTHER PLAYERS
(a) After a tackle, all other players must be on their feet when they play the ball. Players are on their feet if no other part of their body is supported by the ground or players on the ground.
Penalty: Penalty Kick
But Adam Jones may not been as innocent as Adam before Eve.
Law 15.6 (c) At a tackle or near to a tackle, other players who play the ball must do so from behind the ball and from behind the tackled player or the tackler closest to those players’ goal-line.
Penalty: Penalty Kick
Jones does not seem to come from behind Campbell but from the side and may well have been the first one penalised.
The incident occurreed after 8 minutes.
4. Penalty try?
One that was and one that wasn’t.
a.
Just before half-time Leinster attack the Edinburgh line. They batter and then the ball comes back to Felipe Contepomi who grubbers into the Edinburgh goal area with Gordon D’Arcy and Brian O’Driscoll to chase. But O’Driscoll does not chase because Nick De Luca tackles him. De Luca does not just block O’Driscoll’s progress but puts his arms out to tackle the Irishman and brings him to ground.
The ball rolls into the in-goal area and Edinburgh’s Andy Turnbull wins the race back to the ball – to no avail as the referee goes off to award the penalty try.
Right decision?
Tough one. Turnbull is fast but O’Driscoll had the shorter run and a better start, and O’Driscoll is not slow. He would probably have won the race for the ball.
Probably is enough to produce a penalty try.
That De Luca did not get a yellow card was astonishing. Infringements do not come much more deliberate than that. Or does a penalty try exclude a yellow card as being sentence enough?
The incident occurred after 46 minutes of the first half. (Time is not stopped, which is a pity.)
b. London Wasps are on the attack. Clermont Auvergne stop Raphael Iba?ez right on their line. Wasps win the ball back and go right. Flutey has two players outside of him – a long way to his right but Clermont Auvergne’s left wing Julien Malzieu comes in to intackle. As Flutey starts to pass Malzieu jumps high. Seeing this Flutey passes higher than he normally would but Malzieu reaches up and knocks the ball down.
The referee awards a scrum to Wasps.
Penalty?
If the referee adjudged the knock-on to be deliberately, which he clearly did not. And we have no guarantee how uninterrupted his view was as a split second before that he had been crouched low when Iba?ez was tackled at the line and on that side of the tackle/ruck rather than on the open side where the knock-on occurred.
Because the knock-on was adjudged not to be intentional the question of a penalty try was not relevant. A penalty try is triggered only by foul play and a knock-on is not foul play. A deliberate knock-on is foul play, not an unintentional one.
If the knock on had been deliberate would a penalty try have been considered?
Obviously. But a try was not necessarily probable as the pass was looped and long and there were two defenders scurrying across.
The incident occurred after 77 minutes.
5. The extinct obstruction
OK – foot-up is dead. Hands in the scrum is well and truly dead. handling in a ruck by the team winning the ball is dead. Accept all of those as rugby’s dodos. There is another.
Felipe Contepomi goals a penalty for Leinster and Edinburgh’s Phil Godman kicks off. Up goes stately Malcolm O’Kelly to catch the ball. Leo Cullen goes back to him and prop Stan Wright binds ahead of him. Cullen and Wright form a buffer against the advancing Edinburghians.
Law 10.1 (c) Blocking the tackler. A player must not intentionally move or stand in a position that prevents an opponent from tackling a ball carrier.
Cullen and Wright intentionally stood in front of O’Kelly and prevented the Edinburgh players from getting to him.
Seen it at kick-offs before?
Seen it penalised lately?
The incident occurred after 4 minutes.
7. The harsh call
Mike Blair of Edinburgh kicks high into the box. Ron Kearney of Leinster advances, leaps, catches the ball, comes to ground and bangs into Jamie Heaslip. Matt Mustchin is up against Heaslip so that Heaslip is sandwiched between Mustchin and Kearney. The referee blows the whistle, says Accidental off-side, and awards a scrum to Edinburgh.
Commentator: “Again another quick call from the referee.; I think that was a bit of a harsh call. In situations like that the player is watching the ball. He doesn’t even know what’s in front of him. I thought that was a bit of a harsh call.”
The comment is astonishing. What the referee did was exactly what the Laws of the Game require.
Law 11.6 6 ACCIDENTAL OFF-SIDE
(a) When an off-side player cannot avoid being touched by the ball or by a team-mate carrying it, the player is accidentally off-side. If the player’s team gains no advantage from this, play continues. If the player’s team gains an advantage, a scrum is formed with the opposing team throwing in the ball.
Leinster gained an advantage in that Mustchin could not tackle Kearney.
One wonders what on earth the commentator wanted the referee to do. Imagine how cheated Mustchin would have felt if he had let play go on. He would have wondered what sort of game he was playing.
Did the commentator expect the scrum to be given to Leinster? There was no reason on earth to give the scrum to Leinster.
What the referee did was perfectly correct and there was nothing harsh about it.
The incident occurred after 48 minutes.
8. BOD fiddles
Brian O’Driscoll runs forward and is tackled. Stan Wright of :Leinster picks up and tries to charge ahead but is brought to ground near where O’Driscoll is lying. Lying there, O’Driscoll knocks the ball back with his hand.
The referee penalises O’Driscoll.
Right?
Yes.
Law 15.6 OTHER PLAYERS
(a) After a tackle, all other players must be on their feet when they play the ball. Players are on their feet if no other part of their body is supported by the ground or players on the ground.
Penalty: Penalty Kick
The incident occurred after 9 minutes.
9. Whose ball?
The award of a scrum is not a minor award. It often takes the other side ages and lots of stressful effort to get the ball back.
a. Daniel Cipriani darts ahead but Elvis Vermeulen of Clermont Auvergne tackles him. Both players go to ground, Cipriani not flat on the ground but on the ground.
A tackle/ruck occurs and the ball becomes unplayable.
The referee swings a fist across his chest in the signal that the ball was lost through non-use.
But that applies only to a maul. This was not a maul because Cipriani was not on his feet. The award of the ball should have been as for a tackle, i.e. in the favour of the team going forward, which would have been Wasps.
The incident occurred after 66 minutes.
b. Munster are going through a pick-and-drive routine. Marcus Horan picks up from a heap of players and immediately Ben Broster of the Scarlets tackles him so that he falls back onto the heap of players on his left.
The referee says: “Isolated”, gives the unplayable maul sign and awards a scrum to the Scarlets.
Again there was no maul. Horan was tackled. “Isolated” seems an irrelevant comment.
One would have expected the scrum to go to Munster.
The incident occurred after 55 minutes.
10. Dropped conversion.
Jerry Flannery scores a try for Munster in the left corner.
Ronan O’Gara places the ball for the kick-off. He starts his run-up but the ball is blown over on windy Thomond Park and rolls infield. O’Gara darts forward as the Scarlets start charging, picks up the ball and shapes to kick a drop. The referee speaks to him and he backs to the place where he had originally places it and kicks a wayward drop.
Law 9.B.2 THE KICKER’S TEAM
(c) If the ball falls over before the kicker begins the approach to kick, the referee permits the kicker to replace it without excessive delay. While the ball is replaced, the opponents must stay behind their goal-line.
If the ball falls over after the kicker begins the approach to kick, the kicker may then kick or attempt a dropped goal. If the ball falls over and rolls away from the line through the place where the try was scored, and the kicker then kicks the ball over the cross bar, a goal is scored.
If the ball falls over and rolls into touch after the kicker begins the approach to kick, the kick is disallowed. Penalty: (a)-(c) If the kicker’s team infringes, the kick is disallowed.
The incident occurred after 7 minutes.
10. Lifting a leg
After the TMO advises that he could not see if a scrum was scored, the Scarlets have a five-metre scrum. They heal and the ball comes back to the right of No.8, Alix Popham. Peter Stringer, the Munster scrumhalf, is anxious to put pressure on whoever is going to pick up but as the ball comes out Popham raises a long left leg to impede Stringer in his avowed intent.
OK?
Law 10.1 (f) Flanker obstructing opposing scrum-half. A flanker in a scrum must not prevent an opposing scrum-half from advancing around the scrum.
Penalty: Penalty Kick
The incident occurred after 10 minutes.
11. Quick throw stopped
From the left Toulouse wing Cedric Heymans kicks high and across the field towards the touch-line on Toulouse’s right. Andy Goode of Leicester Tigers falls back and flykicks the ball which ricochets off Vincent Clerc’s leg and into touch. The throw in will be Leicester and Leicester are desperate for a try to get a bonus point. They are running everything and playing as quickly as they can. Goode runs over to get the ball and when he get it is about five metres downfield from the place where the touch judge has raised his flag.
The referee stops the quick throw-in.
He does so because Goode had thrown in from the wrong place. Goode could have thrown in five metres closer to his own line but not five metres closer to the Toulouse line.
Does the touch judge keep his flag up in such a case?
No.
Law 6.B.5 (d) When to lower the flag. When the ball is thrown in, the touch judge must lower the flag, with the following exceptions:
Exception 1: When the player throwing in puts any part of either foot in the field-of-play, the touch judge keeps the flag up.
Exception 2: When the team not entitled to throw-in has done so, the touch judge keeps the flag up.
Exception 3: When, at a quick throw-in, the ball that went into touch is replaced by another ball, or after it went into or it has been touched by anyone except the player who takes the throw-in, the touch judge keeps the flag up.
The incident occurred after 80 minutes.
