Thoughts on a troublesome penalty try

There was a penalty try awarded against France on Saturday which, unlike the TMO’s decision to advise that Shane Williams had scored a try, evoked no critical outcry, but it bears thinking about.

There is only one reason to award a penalty try – when foul play prevents the probable scoring of a try.

There must be foul play, and intentionally collapsing a scrum is a form of foul play. But it’s not enough that a scrum fall down for it to be foul play and so come within the scope of a penalty try. It must fall down because of an illegality, because somebody has infringed. In the weekend’s Six Nations matches, 28 scrums fell down. On 22 occasions the scrum fell down through no perceived wrongdoing. Six were penalised. Six would have been candidates for penalty tries if the collapsing of the scrum had stopped a probable try from being scored.

Probable. Not possible. A try can possibly be scored if you have the ball regardless of where you are on the field. Probable is more than “more likely than not”. Probable is just short of certain.

If you took a scale of 0 to 10, where 10 would be certain and 0 would be impossible, probable would be 9, or perhaps 8 at a stretch.  It would be, as the dictionary says, “reasonably expected to happen”. (Possible would be the whole gamut of 1 to 10.)

The defending team infringes under Law 10. If you can say to yourself that all that can prevent a try is if the attackers get something surprisingly wrong, then the try is probable.

A penalty try is not punishment for repeated infringement – unless that infringement prevents the probable scoring of a try. A penalty try is not punishment for being naughty unless that naughtiness prevents the probable scoring of a try.

The penalty try awarded against France came after the setting of five five-metre scrums. The third one had been penalised when William Servat went down. Relentlessly the Irish opted for another scrum. There was a reset and then the penalty try.

Ireland heeled the ball and went slightly forward. The scrum then started crabbing sideways and then went down.  There was still a way to go to the line and the Irish had no particular forward momentum.

There did not seem justification for awarding a penalty try as there seemed no probability that a try would have been scored. The  penalty try looked the wrong decision.

It was a better decision  than two penalty tries awarded (and part of a law discussion) in recent times when the ball was not even in the scrum. When the ball is not even in the scrum it is dead and a try is not possible, let alone probable.  It’s a dead thing. In the case of those two – wrong – penalty try awards, the scrum had been going down, and the penalty try seemed the referee’s way out of the impasse.

That he wants out of the impasse is laudable, perhaps, but using the penalty try to do so is not in law.  (It is not necessarily laudable as there can be gripping drama in repeated five-metre scrums, as there is in a driving maul or a TMO’s decision. Nothing spectacular or glamorous is happening but the tension is great.)

If it is not in law to award a penalty try in such a position what is the referee to do? What can he do in law?

He is expected by the law to admonish or caution the guilty player, and a caution includes a trip to the sin bin. The big sanction that he has is sending off, temporarily or permanently. In the Paris case the referee could have sent the guilty French player to the sin bin. France replace him but they play on with 14 men. The scrum is reset with seven sufferers and. if they cheat again, off goes another one. 13 men. Uncontested scrums.

It may spoil the game as a spectacle as the game may become an uneven contest but it is the team cheating that makes it so and they suffer enormously.

In this match, when this penalty try was awarded, there were still 23 minutes to play. France may have got out of scrumming – and Ireland had only seven scrums in the entire match – but they would have had to play with short numbers around the park where there would be no uncontested tackles, rucks, mauls, line-outs.

It’s a tough situation, and a referee must feel at times like Ixion bound to an endlessly turning wheel. But all he has is the law to get him out of the predicament.

He has the law – and his management ability. In a case like this management would be at least twofold – his determination to get things right which he communicates to the players and his care in the setting of the scrum – getting them closer and giving clear instructions and in such a way that the players are in no doubt of what to do and what will happen if they do not do it.

Management goes on after the decision as well, as the law instructs.

Law 10.2 <I>UNFAIR PLAY

(a) Intentionally Offending. A player must not intentionally infringe any Law of the Game, or play unfairly. The player who intentionally offends must be either admonished, or cautioned that a send off will result if the offence or similar offence is committed, or sent off. After a caution a player is temporarily suspended from the match for a period of ten minutes playing time. After a caution, if the player commits the same or similar offence, the player must be sent off.
Penalty: Penalty Kick

A penalty try must be awarded if the offence prevents a try that would probably otherwise have been scored. A player who prevents a try being scored through foul play must either be cautioned and temporarily suspended or sent off.</i>