One from SA v Italy yesterday.
SA deliberately kicked-off short and recovered it, in order to manufacture a Italian scrum that they could pressure into a penalty.
Can anyone explain how Brace didn’t call this as foul play and award a penalty? Law 9.7(a) A player must not intentionally infringe any law of the game.
Yet another "innovation" from SA that is a blight on the game. Has SA ever contributed anything positive to the sport?
It’s not even innovation though - it looks like exploiting a weak piece of refereeing from Brace. There’s already provision in the Laws to prevent this - the referee just bottled it.
I was being sarcastic. They don't innovate, they just look to push the boundaries of the law to make things worse for the sport.
I don't understand why it wasn't a penalty for offside. The player was in front of the kicker.
Offside at a restart has always only been a scrum (or an option of making the team re-take the kick off).
But there is an argument as Blackwhite said above that it could be a penalty for intentionally infringing the laws of the game.
The Italians could also have asked them to retake it, right?
the italians did it against ireland in the 2004 six nations
As sprucemouse said, the Italians tried similar v Ireland in a 6Ns game where they felt they had a better scrum than us but unfortunately for them we won a penalty from the resulting scrum.
hoping an actual ref on here can clarify something about tom farrell's try at the weekend. obviously a player can 'juggle' the ball in an attempt to gather it, but it looked to me as if TF deliberately tapped the ball forward and over Jimmy O'Brien's (i think he was the incoming defender) head while regathering the ball - surely that is considered throwing the ball forward? the argument against it from others is 'its only a knock on if it hits the ground', which i would interpret as an exception to the overall laws around the ball going forward (similar to a charge-down not being a knock on) - if it was just as simple as that then whats to stop a player throwing the ball foward over a defender and gathering it before it hits the ground?
I'd assume the difference is that is was "in the act of trying to catch the ball" under Law 11.4.
11.4 It is not an intentional knock forward if, in the act of trying to catch the ball, the player knocks on provided that there was a reasonable expectation that the player could gain possession.
A deliberate throw forward is covered under 11.7, and there's no exceptions to that law listed.
yeah that kinda lines up with my thinking on it (i think), if he deliberately played the ball forward to take out the defender then its a forward throw and the 'juggling' exception doesnt apply. i suppose trying to prove whether it was deliberate or not is another story but it looked to me like he tapped it over JOB's head
I think the argument is that TF didnt intentionally play the ball forward and it was more natural play of the ball therefore it was play on. There is a clear difference for me in what TF did which was reclaim a ball kicked forward and a player throwing a ball forward
Brian O'Driscoll's one years ago was more a throw forward than Tom Farrell's tap. Tbh, one of the Leinster defenders has to stay on the ground, let him land and then smash him. Farrell eased off for a second so it looked like he was expecting a whistle too
i think BOD's self pass probably comes under the thing of leaving the hands backwards and travels forwards. either way i find it interesting that it became so famous because he just ends up getting smashed almost straight away
but yep the fact that TF eased off for a sec is an important point that i left out to be fair as its why i thought it might have been deliberate rather than purely accidental
?? dunno what incident your thinking of here.
the famous "pass to himself" starts with BOD getting the ball in his own half and ends with him making about 30 meters from a run and winning the lineout to leinster within the opponents 22.
yeah to be fair i had misremembered it
