S14 Law discussion, Wk 4

So far this busy week we have given the stats for Super 14 and Six Nations and the incidents discussion for Six Nations,. Now we shall discuss a few incidents from the Super 14, including the case of advantage that raised eyebrows.

1. Knock back – and off-side

Early in the match between the Hurricanes and the Brumbies David Smith had done a fumble in his in-goal area. The ball went backwards but then bounced forward.

Commentator: “He lost the ball and then it bounced forward,. he bounce may have looked as it is was forward.”

The commentator was right. If he dropped the ball backwards and it then bounced forward, it was not a knock-on.

Much later in the match Smith, who must be good at this sort of thing, again dropped the ball, from a kick, backwards and again it then bounced forward where Chris Smylie, the Hurricanes’ scrumhalf grabbed the ball.

The referee penalised him.

The penalty had nothing to do with a knock-on but with a simple case of off-side. Smiley was in front of a player of his side who last played the ball.

There was a similar incident in the Ireland-England match. Funny how we can go for many, many matches without seeing this sort of thing and then have two in two days.

Law 11 – Off-side and On-side in General Play

DEFINITION

At the start of a game all players are on-side. As the match progresses players may find themselves in an off-side position. Such players are then liable to be penalised until they become on-side again.

In general play a player is off-side if the player is in front of a team-mate who is carrying the ball or in front of a team-mate who last played the ball.

Off-side means that a player is temporarily out of the game. Such players are liable to be penalised if they take part in the game.

1 OFF-SIDE IN GENERAL PLAY

(a) A player who is in an off-side position is liable to penalty only if the player does one of three things:

Interferes with play or,
Moves forward, towards the ball or
Fails to comply with the 10 metre Law (Law 11.4).

A player who is in an off-side position is not automatically penalised.

(b) Off-side and interfering with play. A player who is off-side must not take part in the game. This means the player must not play the ball or obstruct an opponent.

Smylie was in front of Smith and Smylie played the ball.

2. Slapping the ball

The Hurricanes are winning the ball and replacement scrumhalf Alby Mathewson picks the ball up behind a tackle/ruck to pass it to his left. As he draws the ball back to pass it, George Smith leans over the remains of the tackle/ruck and slaps the ball out of Mathewson’s hands. He slaps it backwards.

There is nothing wrong with slapping the ball provided that it is not slapped forward.

The tackle/ruck was over. Smith was on-side as he had been at the back of the tackle/ruck for its duration.

3. He’s won it!

At a tackle the ball is on the ground. Josh Blackie of the Highlanders is there and seeks to grab the ball with his hands. Brent Russell of the Stormers pushes against Blackie who seems to get the ball up off the ground but then drops its back onto the ground as Russell shoves against him. Blackie then gets the ball up and the referee proclaims: “He’s won it!”

This is something that one hopes will change. When Blackie first put his hands on the ball it was legal. When Russell shoved against him it was no loner legal because it was a ruck – a player of each side in physical contact over the ball on the ground.

4. The case of the tackling non-tackler

If 3. above is a hard-luck case, this one is worse. Gareth Hardy of the Force surges ahead. Ernst Joubert and Gordon Gilfillan of the Lions grab him. Gilfillan lets go but Joubert holds on. Hardy goes to ground with the ball while Joubert, holding onto Hardy, stays on his feet. Joubert, the side of Hardy, grabs the ball and is penalised for not coming in from behind.

It is an interesting situation.

We have a tackle:

But we do not have a tackler, because Joubert stayed on his feet. It is a desirable thing to stay on your feet in rugby, but not if you want to be a tackler.

It is a tackle.

Law 15 A tackle occurs when a ball-carrier is held by one or more opponents and is brought to the ground.

Hardy is tackled by Joubert but Joubert is not a tackler.

Law 15. Opposition players who hold the ball-carrier and bring that player to ground and also go to ground are known as tacklers.

Opposition players who hold the ball-carrier and do not go to ground are not tacklers.

That meant that Joubert had to go round and enter through the gate.

It is absurd!

The referee, of course, was right to penalise Joubert because that is what the law requires. They could change that.

5. Men in funny mauls

The Reds catch the ball in a line-out at No.2. They form a maul. As they form it there is little support in front of James Horwill and Jerry Collins who is at the front of the line-out for the Blues moves in on Horwill. The maul moves about and so does Collins till he is nearer the Reds’ scrumhalf than Horwill is.

At this time Jerome Kaino of the Blues attaches himself to the Reds’ side of the maul. The referee says: “Get back, Blue 8”, which Blue 8 does. But the referee says nothing about Collins and when the Reds protest his presence, the referee says: “Part of the maul. Not off-side.”

That’s right. Once a player is caught up in the maul and stays caught up in the maul, he is not off-side.

6. Maul plucking

This happens in the same match as 5. above. This time roles are slightly reversed as it is Reds player, James Horwill, who is caught up in the maul, again seemingly on the “wrong” side but legitimately there.

Derren Witcombe, the Blues hooker, wants to rid himself of the troublesome Red, grabs him and slings him out of the maul.

The referee penalises Witcombe.

OK?

Yes.

Law 17.3 (a) A player must not try to drag an opponent out of a maul.
Penalty: Penalty kick

7. Nonu cycles nowhere

When the Hurricanes played the Brumbies Ma’a Nonu was sent to the sin bin for a dangerous tackle. He then mounted a fixed bicycle and pedalled away to keep loose.

OK?

SANZAR’s regulation regarding the sin bin is as follows:

4.3TEMPORARY SUSPENSION (SIN BIN)

Temporary Suspension Area (SIN BIN) area will also be situated with No. 4 / No. 5 in seating alongside the touchline. The No 4 / No 5 will be responsible for keeping the Ten (10) minutes playing time related to occupation of SIN BIN and inform referee when player is eligible to return to field. If a player is sent to the SIN BIN in the 10 minutes prior to half time, then the player should remain with the No. 4 / No. 5 during the half time interval (the player is not allowed into the Dressing Rooms).

The purpose of the sin bin is to take the player off the field for ten minutes’ playing time and away from team activities for ten minutes’ playing time.

It would seem that that was the case with Nonu, perched on a cycle going nowhere. Having him loose and warm for re-entry into the match seems sensible as well. There is no need to punish the sin-binned player with injury as well!

8. Advantage

The vexed one here occurred in the match between the Highlanders and the Stormers in Dunedin.

The Stormers were down 13-0 and threw in at a line-out about two metres outside of the Highlanders’ 22. They mauled ahead over the 22, when the referee stuck out his arm to indicate advantage because the Highlanders’ hooker Jason MacDonald had attempted to collapse the maul.

By mauling and a couple of pick-‘n-goes the Stormers advanced about three metres without causing the Highlanders any distress. Then the ball went to ground and the Stormers’ scrum half passed the ball to Peter Grant the flyhalf who passed to Brent Russell who passed to – Viliame Waqaseduadua of the Highlanders who caught the ball about eight metres outside of his 22 and ran off into the distance to score a try.

The time elapsed from the arm out to indicate advantage to the intercept was 19 seconds.

Advantage is always at the referee’s discretion, which in a sense makes him always right. Because it is at his discretion there are no hard-and-fast rules. Nor is the referee held responsible for the team’s poor play. The referee did not throw the pass to Waqaseduadua .

That said there is a law within which advantage works.

Law 8 DEFINITION

The law of advantage takes precedence over most other laws and its purpose is to make play more continuous with fewer stoppages for infringements. Players are encouraged to play to the whistle despite infringements by their opponents. When the result of an infringement by one team is that their opposing team may gain an advantage, the referee does not whistle immediately for the infringement.

1 ADVANTAGE IN PRACTICE

(a) The referee is sole judge of whether or not a team has gained an advantage. The referee has wide discretion when making decisions.

(b) Advantage can be either territorial or tactical.

(c) Territorial advantage means a gain in ground.

(d) Tactical advantage means freedom for the non-offending team to play the ball as they wish.

The territorial gain to the Stormers was, initially a matter of three metres and when the scrumhalf passed, that was lost, if that was when advantage ended, and when Russell passed it was nearly ten metres behind the place where the infringement occurred. Certainly the territorial advantage would not compare with that possible through a penalty which also offered a comfortable kick at goal.

It would seem that the only possible advantage to the Stormers was a score – to the Stormers, that is, not to the Highlanders.

That would leave tactical. The Stormers tried pick-‘n-go and were under constant pressure when they did so because of the tight marking of the Highlanders. When they dropped the ball to ground the scrumhalf had little option but to pass and the pressure was all there. It’s hard to see how the Stormers had the “freedom to play the ball as they wished”.

It may well have been an indiscretion to consider this advantage. It was not too long a passage of play to make going back to the original infringement an embarrassment.

9. TMO drop

Herkie Kruger of the Cheetahs dropped for goal against the Crusaders. It was not much of a kick, dipping as it got to the crossbar.

The referee referred the matter to the television match official, who advised him that he “may award the drop”.

OK? Within protocol?

Yes.

AREAS OF ADJUDICATION

2.1 The areas of adjudication are limited to Law 6. 8 (b), 6.8 (d) and 6.8 (e) and therefore relate to:

grounding of the ball for try and touch down
Touch, touch-in-goal, ball being made dead during the act of grounding the ball.

This includes situations where a player may or may not have stepped in touch in the act of grounding the ball on or over the goal line.

The TMO could therefore be requested to assist the referee in making the following decisions:

Try
No try and scrum awarded 5 metres
Touch down by a defender
In touch – line-out
Touch-in-goal
Ball dead on or over the dead ball line
Penalty tries after acts of foul play in in-goal
Dropped goal.

10 Dead ball – whose ball?

Dead ball. Jaco van der Westhuysen of the Bulls kicks downfield and the ball rolls into the Chiefs’ in-goal. Dwayne Sweeney, the Chiefs’ fullback, is close to the ball, hoping that it will roll over the dead-ball line. The ball stops a metre or so from the dead-ball line. Sweeney places his left hand on the ball with his right foot on the dead-ball line, claiming that the ball had run dead and that his side should be entitled to a scrum a long way down the field where Van der Westhuysen kicked the ball.

The referee ordered a drop-out, saying that the ball had stopped rolling.

This case is not fully covered in law but Sweeney was probably thinking of the analogy with the ball approaching the goal-line or the touch-line. If it is caught before the goal-line by a player with his foot on the line and then drawn back and dotted down it is deemed to have been grounded in in-goal and a drop-out is ordered. If the ball is caught by a player with his foot on the touch-line, it is deemed to be out and the throw-in belongs to the catcher’s team.

But Sweeney does not catch the ball nor is the ball approaching the dead-ball line. It has stopped. His hand on the ball simply makes the ball dead. If a player in touch puts his hand on the ball which is static in the field of play without picking it up, play goes on. If a player with a foot in touch picks up a static ball in the field of play, the ball is in touch and the line-out goes to the other team.

The referee was right in the Sweeney case.