Law Discussion - 23 May

A tale of two finals

The Brumbies beat the Crusaders in a high-scoring Super 12 Final - an un-final Final. You do not often get one that produces all those points and all those tries. Then the Wasps beat Toulouse in a thriller decided in the 79th minute.

Finals are tense affairs. There were two incidents which showed that, both involving fullbacks, both resulting in tries, one in the first minute of the Super 12 Final, the other with a minute to go in the Heineken Cup Final.

The ball was lying on the ground when Ben Blair of the Crusaders came to kick it into touch. He missed the ball, and Joe Roff scored.

In the other Clément Poitrenaud of Toulouse, waited and waited as the grubbered ball came down into his in-goal at the cornerflag, and Robert Howley scored.

It is probably a safe bet that neither Blair nor Poitrenaud had ever made mistake before and would never do so again.

Those are Final nerves. And if the players are nervous, so are the referees - however calm and in control they appear.

Suffice it is to say that both were excellent matches, both excellently refereed.

We shall do some stats, as usual, and then discuss a few little points of law (Both matches were mercifully free of controversy) and answer some readers' questions.

1. Statistics

a. Tries

Brumbies vs Crusaders: 13
Wasps vs Toulouse: 4

Brumbies: 7
Crusaders: 6

Wasps: 3
Toulouse: 1

b. Penalties conceded

Per match:
Brumbies vs Crusaders: 15
Wasps vs Toulouse: 21

Per team:
Brumbies: 9
Crusaders: 6

Wasps: 12
Toulouse: 9

Reasons for the penalties:

Brumbies:
Tackle/ruck: 6 (George Smith, Owen 2, Joel Wilson, Scott Fava, Radike Samo)
Off-side: 1 (Joel Wilson)
Discipline: 2 (maul collapse - Finegan, not 10m - Tawake & Shepherdson)

Crusaders:
Tackle/ruck: 2 (Hewett, McCaw)
Off-side: 2 (Reuben Thorne, Jack)
Discipline: 2 (backchat - Mehrtens, fighting - Marshall)

Wasps:
Tackle/ruck: 6 (Leota 2, Volley 2, Dallaglio, Green)
Scrum: 2 (Paine 2)
Off-side: 1 (Lewsey)
Discipline: 3 (Maul collapse - Birkett, tackle without ball - Volley, line-out barging - Birkett)

Toulouse:
Tackle/ruck: 6 (Bouilhou, Pelous 2, Brennan, Brennan, Finau Maka)
Scrum: 1 (Colazzo)
Off-side: 2 (Michalak, Elissalde)

c. Line-outs

This bit deals with the times teams threw into line-outs.

Brumbies: 5 (1 skew, 1 lost)
Crusaders: 20 (4 lost, 3 skew, 4 quick)

Wasps: 12 (4 lost, 1 skew)
Toulouse: 14 (1 lost, 1 quick, 1 penalty)

d. Scrums

This deals with the times a team put the ball into scrums. In the Super 12 final the first scrum came after 22 minutes.

Brumbies: 4 (3 reset)
Crusaders: 9 (1 reset)

Wasps: 7 (2 resets, 1 penalty)
Toulouse: 8 (5 resets, 2 penalties, 1 lost)

e. Free Kicks

This deals with free kicks which teams took. The only free kicks were for fair catches (marks)

Brumbies: 1 (mark)
Crusaders: 3 (marks)

Wasps: 2 (marks)
Toulouse: 0

f. Sanctionary cards

There was only one in the two matches - served on Lawrence Dallaglio for offending twice in one Toulouse attack - as a lazy runner and then in killing the ball.

2. One foot behind

Stephen Larkham kicks high as the Brumbies move to their right from a scrum. Left-wing Mark Gerrard is on his left and takes off after the ball. Ben Blair drops the ball and Gerrard scores.

The commentators questioned whether or not Gerrard was off-side. The slow-motion replay suggests that he had one foot behind Larkham as the unruffled flyhalf kicked.

One foot enough? One in front, one behind?

One foot is enough. Gerrard was on-side.

3. Chisholm's dive

Ben Blair of the Crusaders starts to counterattack, meanders across the field and then passes and erratic pass to his left. Radike Samo of the Brumbies foots the loose ball ahead and he and fellow lock Mark Chisholm set off in pursuit of the ball. Aaron Mauger of the Crusaders falls back and dives on the ball.

Chisholm also dives - next to Mauger, not on him. He puts a left arm on Mauger. He and Mauger, who has the ball, try to rise as other players gather and the Brumbies drive over, get the turn-over and score their second try of the match.

OK?

The Laws forbid diving on a player on the ground. Chisholm did not dive on Mauger. The laws forbid playing a from the ground after a tackle. There was no tackle. When Chisholm put an arm on Mauger, that did not constitute a tackle, as neither players was on his feet and then brought to ground.

It seems fair that play was allowed to continue.

4. No quick throw

The Crusaders battle to get their line-outs right. A quick throw-in is a desired option.

George Smith of the Brumbies grubbers through. Clyde Rathbone of the Brumbies knocks the ball into touch.

Ben Blair of the Crusaders picks the ball up in touch and wanders into the field. He throws the ball to Justin Marshall of the Crusaders. Marshall drops the ball onto the ground. Richie McCaw of the Crusaders comes trotting across, picks up the ball and runs in quickly and throws in quickly. At this stage there are five Crusaders and seven Brumbies lined up at the line of touch.

Quick throw-in on?

Not at all for two reasons.

Firstly McCaw was not the player who collected the ball in touch, and so not competent to throw in.

Secondly there were more than two players from each team lined up, well and truly a formed line-out.

5. Scrum or penalty

Cédric Heymans of Toulouse kicks a high kick into Wasps' territory. He chases and puts pressure on Trevor Leota, the Wasp with the smiling neck. Leota knocks on.

Lawrence Dallaglio of the Wasps is standing in front of Leota. The ball bounces to him and he grabs it.

Penalty or scrum?

If Dallaglio stopped a Toulouse player from getting advantage, it would have been a penalty.

If there was no Toulouse player to get the ball immediately, it was a scrum - as it was in the match.

6. Taking it back

Toulouse attack. Cédric Heymans goes racing down the touch-line on his left and up towards the Wasps' 22. Eight metres from the 22 he passes inside, but the ball does not to go a team-mate but to Fraser Waters of the Wasps who is falling back. Waters catches the ball and keeps on running till he is about a metre inside his 22. From there he kicks the ball directly into touch.

Where is the line-out?

You have a choice of three places - where the ball went out, on the 22 or where he kicked the ball.

The line-out will be opposite the place where Waters kicked the ball.

7. Diving on a loose ball

Is it OK to dive on a ball lying loose on the ground?

Answer: not always.

Frédéric Michalak of Toulouse tries to barge ahead and is tackled by Simon Shaw. He and Shaw go to ground. Michalak pushes the ball back. It is lying free. Will Green, the Wasps' prop, dives on the ball. He is penalised and looks bemused, in the way props do.

The referee was quite right.

After a tackle the next player to play the ball must be on his feet, which Green was not.

8. Much tackling Joe

Nobody tackled the way Joe Worsley did - not as often or as low.

Yannick Bru charged and Worsley tackled him around the ankles. Both went to ground.

In the dexterous Toulouse way Bru popped the ball to Jean-Baptiste Elissalde. Lying there Worsley tackled Elissalde who, in the dexterous Toulouse way, got a pass away to Frédéric Michalak.

All OK?

No Worsley's second tackle, however neat and clean, was illegal.

To play the tackler and any other player on the ground must get to his feet before playing.

Law 15.7 (h) After a tackle, any player lying on the ground must not tackle an opponent or try to tackle an opponent.

9. Readers' questions

a. I may be mistaken but I'm sure I noticed players during the Super 12 standing with 1 foot in-field and 1 foot in the in-goal area when fielding a kick rolling back and looking like it's not going to roll over the line. Their feet were placed as such before actually fielding the ball and thus the ball was deemed not carried over although the ball itself had not crossed the try-line yet. A 22m drop was awarded. Is this correct? Was this perhaps previously discussed?

Answer: It was correct. It has been previously discussed. It is covered by the definitions in Law 22: A defending player who has one foot on the goal-line or in the in-goal who receives the ball is considered to have both feet in in-goal.

b. Situation

Penalty kick against Green team at 20m of the Black team line. A player from the Green team holds onto the ball, and a Black team player tries to take it and violently punches the Green player. The referee sends Black player off.

The game restarts with the same penalty kick against the Green team and the Black team, kicking for touch, won 40 metres of ground plus ball at the line-out. After a nice movement the Black team scores a try.

The referee ends the game and Black team win by four points.

Question: After the sending off, doesn't the referee need to change the penalty kick and give the ball to the Green Team?

Answer: From what you have described there seems no doubt that the referee should have reversed the penalty and penalised the Black team.

I presume that the referee blew his whistle for the penalty for black. Play was then dead. Green were wrong to hold onto the ball but Black was more wrong to punch.