3N kicks off - Part Two

Match incidents

We discuss incidents from the first Tri-Nations match between New Zealand and Australia in wet Wellington and the third Pacific Islanders' match when they played South Africa in Gosford.

New Zealand vs Australia

1.Scrum collapse

There were four penalties for front row illegalities two against Kees Meeuws of New Zealand, one against Al Baxter of Australia and one against Bill Young of Australia.

Often times there is a prop as an assistant commentator, often one far too eloquent to have been a prop!

Often that prop commentator will disagree with the referee and wonder what on earth the referee knows about what happens in the dark underground of the front row.

Kees Meeuws was upset and, at least the first time, showed that he disagreed with the referee not that it is unusual for a player to disagree with a referee.

Lets look at just the first case.

Australia put in at a scrum. He scrum collapses and is reset. The referee has positioned himself on the 'other' side, that is the Australian tighthead.

The scrum goes down.

Tighthead Al Baxter of Australia goes down first and ends up on his knees. Kees Meeuws is on the New Zealand loosehead. His arm goes down but he stays on his feet.

The referee penalises Meeuws for not binding correctly. He had bound on Baxters right side, somewhere about his ribs.

Binding OK?

Law 20.3 (c) Binding by loose-head props. A loose-head prop must bind on the opposing tight-head prop by placing the left arm inside the right arm of the tight-head and gripping the tight-head's jersey on the back or side. The loose-head prop must not grip the chest, arm, sleeve or collar of the opposition tight-head prop. The loose-head prop must not exert any downward pressure.

Penalty: Penalty Kick

The place of Meeuws's bind was OK. The problem was that his arm was in a V pointing downwards. Pulling is a part of pushing. If the elbow is down, then the pulling is downwards. But then Baxter's arm was also forming a V, which suggested that he could also have been pulling downwards.

Question: Is it possible for you to be guilty of collapsing the scrum if you stay on your feet and the other fellow goes to ground?

It's hard to pull an opponent down when he is below you.

If both were guilty of incorrect binding, would it not be wise to reset the scrum, telling them both to get their binding right?

2. A case for a TMO?

New Zealand win an Australian line-out somewhere about the Wallaby 22. Carlos Spencer of New Zealand kicks a high ball. The ball comes to earth in the Wallaby in-goal area. It bounces high. Chris Whitaker the Wallaby scrum-half is in the field of play. He leaps at the ball and is over the Wallaby goal-line when he catches the ball which has not come back into the field-of-play. He drops to ground and touches down. When he does so he is wholly in his in-goal area.

22 or five-metre scrum?

Clearly it is a drop-out - i.e. from the 22.

Just a question: could not the television match official be asked to adjudicate in such a case if the referee is unsure?

It may just be possible in terms of the present protocol governing the area of adjudication for the television match official.

The protocol says:

2 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.

The TMO must not be requested to provide information on players prior to the ball going into in-goal (except touch in the act of grounding the ball).

It may just be that the referee could stretch the wording to cover the Whitaker case - a difficult one at speed.

3. Off-side

New Zealand win a line-out and form a maul. Nathan Sharpe, the Australian captain, is caught in the maul and surrounded only by New Zealanders but where all others have their heads down for earnest shoving, he has his head up. Where others are grabbing team-mates close, he has both arms free. And he is trying to reach over the maul to the New Zealand side to claw at the ball.

Off-side?

No.

Law  17.2 (b) A player must be caught in or bound to the maul and not just alongside it.

Sharpe was caught up in the maul. As long as he got there legally he could do what he did without being penalised. By the way, he was not penalised.

4. The fight

There was a tackle/pile-up/ruck/maul thing. New Zealand were getting the maul.

Keven Mealamu, the New Zealand hooker, was to the right of the maul. Paul Cannon, the Australian hooker, was to the left of the maul. Right and left as each of them would have seen it, which means they were facing each other.

Cannon put his left hand in Mealamus face, fingers spread. Mealamu hit Cannon in the face with his right hand, more of a slap than a punch. Cannon punched Mealamu in the face a powerful punch.

Others got involved.

Australians: Justin Harrison, who ran some distance to the action along with Matt Giteau and Clyde Rathbone, punched. Others concerned were Lote Tuqiri, Bill Young and Radike Samo.

New Zealanders: Carlos Spencer, Justin Marshall and Kees Meeuws punched. Tana Umaga, Mils Muliaina and Xavier Rush were also at the scene but seemed more like peace-keepers.

Justin Marshall and Justin Harrison had an aggressive conversation which went on for some while as the touch judge tried to intervene.

The referee consulted the touch judge and sent Cannon and Mealamu to the sin-bin.

Cannon was afterwards cited and suspended for two weeks.

There are a few questions in all of this.

a. Should more have been sent to the sin bin?

The question that that requires is: Have we an obligation to the game and its watchers?

Imagine if the referee had sent another five players to the sin bin. The match would have been a ten-minute farce. Thats not good.

As it was the match then proceeded without further fighting. It was in fact the only outbreak of fighting in the match.

b. Should more players have been cited?

There is no doubt that Harrison, Spencer, Marshall and Meeuws could be seen to punch. They could have been cited.

The citing commissioner has more taped evidence available than the viewer. He may well have seen more, and more clearly. He may well have had reason to cite players other than just Cannon. That would not have affected the run of the game but may well have sent out a powerful message.

This may well also have been the case for Inoke Afeaki's late, high tackle on Clyde Rathbone which went unpunished though it looked a more obviously deliberate act than Mapusua's on George Gregan.

What one probably would like is that guidelines for citing be made as cast-iron as possible so that the process be as unquestionable as possible. At present, to the layman, the process seems haphazard and open to bias.

That said, discretion must be allowed. Not all punches have equal force!

c. What about possible bias?

In this case the citing commissioner was a South African, the judicial committee consisted of a South African chairman and two New Zealanders. The judicial committee which heard the Cannon case was not an IRB committee as the New Zealand press release would have us believe. It was a SANZAR judicial committee but would it not be better to have such people from an unattached/neutral country, a country not at all involved in any competition involving the players concerned?

The committee that sat on the Cannon case was a SANZAR committee. The same was true of the action taken against Seilala Mapusua. Then the citing commissioner was a New Zealander, the judicial committee chairman a New Zealander and the other two members Australians.

The IRB appoints the other match officials. Would it not be a good idea for them to appoint the judiciary as well?

d.Was it right that the replacements could be replaced?

Cannon and Mealamu were replaced by other hookers Jeremy Paul for Australia and Anthony Hore for New Zealand.

They were needed because at scrums front row specialists are needed and that includes hookers as well as props.

At the end of ten minutes they were replaced by Cannon and Mealamu.

OK?

Law 3.5 (b) Each player in the front row and the potential replacement(s) must be suitably trained and experienced.

Law 3.14 FRONT ROW FORWARD SENT OFF OR TEMPORARILY REPLACED

(a) After a front row player is sent off or during the time a player is temporarily replaced, the referee, upon awarding the scrum, will ask that players captain whether or not the team has another player on the field-of-play who is suitably trained to play in the front row. If not, the captain chooses any player from that team who then must leave the field-of-play and be replaced by a suitably trained front-row player from the teams replacements. The captain may do this either immediately prior to the next scrum or after another player has been tried in the front row.

(b) When a period of temporary suspension ends and a front row players returns to the field-of-play and the nominated player who left the field-of-play for the period of the suspension may resume playing in the match.

The Law certainly allows for the return of the sinners and the departure of those who stood in for them.

5. Only if he does

Keven Mealamu of New Zealand is to throw into a line-out. It is a short line-out. As receiver/scrum-half New Zealand have Simon Maling, a lock. Australia have Matt Dunning, a prop, standing out.

The referee, excellently prophylactic, tells Dunning: Don't come in unless he comes in.

Dunning comes in and helps to hoist Nathan Sharpe.

He referee awards a free kick to New Zealand, saying: Numbers. You can't come in unless he does.

OK?

Law 19 Definitions: Line-out players. Line-out players are the players who form the two lines that make a line-out.

Law 19.7 (b) Maximum. The team throwing in the ball decides the maximum number of players in the line-out.

In fairness to Dunning, Maling seemed at one stage to step in and then be halfheartedly out and Jerry Collins who had been in seemed to step out. That may have confused Dunning.

6.Direct or not?

Breyton Paulse of South Africa runs and on the ten-metre line chips ahead. Sitiveni Sivivatu of the Pacific Islanders catches the ball on the 22.

When he catches the ball his right foot is in touch, his left foot on the touch-line. The ball was infield, that is it had not yet reached the touch-line.

Whose ball where?

Law 19 Definitions: The ball is in touch if a player catches the ball and that player has a foot on the touch-line or the ground beyond the touch-line.

Law 19.1 (a) Outside a team's 22. A team member kicks directly into touch. Except for a penalty kick, when a player anywhere in the playing area who is outside the 22 kicks directly into touch, there is no gain in ground. The throw-in is taken either at the place opposite where the player kicked the ball, or at the place where it went into touch, whichever is nearer that player's goal-line.

It would suggest that the line-out should be where Paulse kicked the ball with the Pacific Islanders to throw in.

7. On the ground and tackling

Jean de Villiers of South Africa foots ahead and chases. Norman Ligairi of the Pacific Islanders gathers the ball and starts to run. De Villiers slips and is lying on the ground when Ligairi goes past him. Lying there De Villiers grabs Ligairis ankle.

OK?

Yes.

There is nothing in the Law which says that a player lying on the ground is not allowed to tackle except after a tackle.

In the case above there had been no tackle. De Villiers was allowed to tackle. If there had been a tackle and after the tackle De Villiers had tackled Ligairi, he would have been penalised.

8. Reader's question - league confusion

Reader: I have a question relating to defending teams kicking the ball dead in in-goal.  This gets a lot of confusion down here in Sydney because of the differing rules for Rugby League.

Situation: Blues are attacking and grubber into the in goal. The Yellow fullback and Blue wing are chasing for the ball. Before the Blue winger can touch down, the Yellow fullback kicks the ball dead.

What happens next? Scrum five to Blue (as I gave) or 22 drop-out to Yellow?

Does the situation change if the Yellow player kicked the ball dead in goal from the field of play?

Answer: The referee then orders a drop-out from the 22. Yellow drop out.

If the ball had gone dead without Yellow interference, then the referee would have offered Yellow the option of a drop-out or a scrum where Blue kicked the ball.

It would have been a scrum only if Yellow had last played the ball in the field-of-play, that is before the Yellow goal-line. If Yellow had kicked the ball into its in-goal and it had gone dead or been made dead by Yellow, it would have been a five-metre scrum, Blue ball.

9. Reader's question - how do I get there?

Reader: Hi i would like to know how do they select referees how can you be selected?

Answer: It is a good question as some people seem to think a referee just drops in to referee and my aunt could do a better job!

People join a referee's society. They are then trained and when considered competent appointed to matches.

As their gradings change, so their appointments change.

Referees get to the top of their societies and are then considered for national panels.

Here again they are graded and, as their gradings change, so do their appointments.

Top referees in each country are assessed by the International Rugby Board. Those chosen for their panels go through the same process at the top level.

Referees at the top level are assessed on every match they referee at the top level.

Each body on the way up will have its own way of appointing referees.

10. Reader's question - at the maul

Reader: Hi. Team 'A' forms five forwards into a maul, all correctly bound, with the ball carrier bound at the rear and they commence their march toward the team 'B' try-line. Team 'B' stand clear and are not bound.

What would you do next if you were the referee?

Answer: If there are no Team B players involved, there is no maul and Team A are guilty of obstruction. They should then be penalised.

But if there is just one Team B player in that group, there is a maul and play goes on.

11. PI scrums

Reader: In the Test against the Pacific Islanders the Springboks were in a position to score a push over try on more than one occasion. Every time they nearly achieved this, the scrum collapsed or broke up in one or another way and the (to me otherwise excellent) ref reset the scrum on the five-metre line.

My first problem is that the PI flanks were not binding properly. They were certainly not obeying the law: "When a player binds on a team-mate that player must use the whole arm from hand to shoulder to grasp the team-mate's body at or below the level of the armpit. Placing only a hand on another player is not satisfactory binding".  In fact they were both at one stage standing off the scrum with one hand gripping the lock's jersey.

My second problem is more philosophical. A scrum can only break up in a situation like that if the defending team breaks it up. I don't see a specific clause of the law that prohibits it, but it seems very unfair for the attacking team to advance a scrum three metres and then have it reset back on the five-metre line.

Answer: A side being shoved back in the scrums is suffering, but the law requires them to stay in the scrum till its over and to keep binding till the scrum is over.

It is a matter for the referee to judge whether they had don me something illegal - like breaking early, like pushing up, like collapsing.

If he judges that they did act illegally and that their opponents would probably have scored a try had they not done so , he is within his rights to award a penalty try.

There is a specific law to prevent people from breaking away from a scrum.

Law 20.1 (f) Number of players: eight. A scrum must have eight players from each team. All eight players must stay bound to the scrum until it ends. Each front row must have three players in it, no more and no less. Two locks must form the second row.

Penalty: Penalty Kick Exception: When a team is reduced to fewer than fifteen for any reason, then the number of players of each team in the scrum may be similarly reduced. Where a permitted reduction is made by one team, there is no requirement for the other team to make a similar reduction. However, a team must not have fewer than five players in the scrum.

Penalty: Penalty Kick