The Sydney Test - Part Two

Off-side

Off-side was again much in discussion this weekend. It has been the dominant refereeing topic of this year's Tri-Nations so far.

We shall deal with the off-side law in brief and giving bare minimums and then with specific examples from Sydney's tense Test.

First: How do we go off-side in rugby?

Off-side means you are off your side and happens in the following ways:

a. You are in front of a player of your side who last played the ball. You are off-side.

You are not penalised for being in an off-side position unless you do something, other than if you are within 10 metres of a place where the ball is dropping.

b. You infringe the off-side law at a scrum, ruck, maul or line-out.

Please, note the tackle is not one of them. There are no off-side lines at a tackle. This is important in the discussion below.

At a scrum, if you are a back, you are off-side if you go beyond your No.8's back foot.  If you are the scrum-half on the side where the ball is being put in, you are off-side if you step past the ball while it is in the scrum.

At a ruck, you are off-side if you are not in the ruck and in front of the last foot on your side of the ruck.

At a maul you are off-side if you are not in the maul and in front of the last foot on your side of the maul.

You are off-side if you are not one of those players in the line-out and you are within 10 metres of the line of throw before the line-out is over.

You are off-side if you are in the line-out and go across the line of throw before the ball is thrown in.

If the ball has been thrown, you are off-side if you go across the line of throw except if you are jumping for the ball or tackling an opponent who has the ball.

If the ball has been played in the line-out, you are off-side if you go beyond the ball except in tackling an opponent.

All off-side lines at a scrum, ruck, maul or line-out fall away when the scrum, ruck, maul or line-out ends.

Phew! That was a mouthful. Let's look at some incidents - bearing in mind that there is no off-side line at a tackle. But in all our cases here we are dealing with post-tackle situations.

Just lets look to definitions first:

Ruck: A ruck is a phase of play where one or more players from each team, who are on their feet, in physical contact, close around the ball on the ground.

NB: On their feet - physical contact - ball on ground.

Australia vs New Zealand

Off-side incident one

Stirling Mortlock charges. Marty Holah tackles him. Both go to ground. The ball is on the ground. There is no ruck then because there are no players on their feet.

Almost immediately players arrive. Keven Mealamu, Chris and Daniel Carter of New Zealand are on their feet and so are Lote Tuqiri and Matt Giteau of Australia. They make contact. That is a ruck.

That is why Bill Young, who is not behind the last feet when he dashes forward, is off-side.

Off-side incident two

George Gregan gets untidy ball but forces his way forward. He is tackled. In come Lote Tuqiri of Australia and Ali Williams of New Zealand. They make contact. They are on their feet. There is just one of each side but enough to form a ruck. The ball comes back to George Smith who is tackled from behind by Xavier Rush who is falling back from the previous play. Because it was a ruck, Rush is off-side.

Off-side incident three

Keven Mealamu is tackled. Brendan Cannon and Marty Holah drive in low, on their feet. Cannon and Holah make contact. Again we have a rudimentary ruck. That is why Nathan Sharpe is penalised when he moves forward and tackles Ali Williams.

Off-side incident four

The Wallabies attack. Chris Jack and Carl Hayman tackle Chris Latham. Latham and Jack go to ground but Hayman regains his feet (just) at the place where Latham and Jack are on the ground. Al Baxter of Australia drives in. Baxter and Hayman make contact. There is a ruck. That is why Carlos Spencer is penalised for being off-side when he rushes ahead to tackle Lote Tuqiri.

Imagine the reaction if Hayman had not got to his feet, thereby not creating a ruck, and Spencer had tackled Tuqiri from a position which looked so terribly off-side. It would have taken a referee of heroic virtue not to penalise him.

Off-side incident six

(We shall come back to five later)

Stirling Mortlock is tackled. Matt Gateau and Al Baxter of Australia drive in. They are on their feet. They make contact (just) with Kees Meeuws of New Zealand, who is on his feet.

The Wallabies go right. George Gregan passes to Brendan Cannon who passes to Clyde Rathbone and things come apart.

In front of that line of Wallabies are (from the right) Chris Jack, Ali Williams, Daniel Cater and Joe Rokocoko. The All Blacks move forward to get to the Wallabies.

The camera angle was good and it certainly looked that Jack and Williams were ahead of Meeuws's feet, Williams further ahead than Jack.

That all adds up to being off-side at a ruck.

Tackle with no off-side line?

Tana Umaga tackles Chris Latham. On the ground are Latham, Umaga and Matt Giteau. On his feet over the ball is Lote Tuqiri. Behind it on the New Zealand side is Daniel Carter but Stirling Mortlock drives him away.

There is no ruck. There is no off-side line.

Tackle with no off-side?

Jono Gibbes and Marty Holah tackle Nathan Sharpe. The three go to ground as dies Justin Harrison. In comes a phalanx of Wallabies - Bill Young, Al Baxter, David Lyons and George Smith. They stand at the tackle. They make contact with no New Zealanders who are on their feet.

There is no ruck. There is no off-side line.

Phil Waugh tackles Doug Howlett. They go to ground, as does Matt Giteau. On their feet at the tackle are Chris Jack, Marty Holah and Ali Williams - all All Blacks. There is no Wallaby on his feet in contact with the All Blacks.

There is no ruck. There is no off-side line.

Off-side incident five:

The Wallabies attack. Clyde Rathbone is tackled. Nathan Sharpe and Al Baxter drive in low and on their feet. No All Black on his feet makes contact with him.

Keven Mealamu is penalised for being off-side.

This may have been a dubious decision.

That said, the whole thing is on such a knife-edge - happening at great speed. The pressure on players to make an instant decision is huge - as it is on the referee and his assistants. There are no replays, just a split second to decide in the white heat of the moment.

Would it not be a simple solution to say that at a tackle there is an off-side line which stretches from touch-line to touch-line - as is the case with the ruck.

We saw in the cases above rucks that were only just rucks. We saw things that looked similar but were not rucks. One wonders what the harm would be to make off-side lines at tackles.

Spectators' off-side at line-out

This is the third time we shall have discussed this, but it bears repeating.

We mentioned the line of throw/line of touch as an off-side line at the line-out. Players in the line-out are not allowed across that line except if they are jumping for the ball or tackling a player who has the ball.

Keven Mealamu of New Zealand throws in at a line-out. He throws deep to Jono Gibbes who moves back and, with help, rises high to catch the ball. From his height he drops the ball down. His players do not get it as Phil Waugh of the Wallabies has gone across the line of throw and grabbed the ball.

Off-side?

Gibbes went back for a throw beyond the 15-metre line. The line-out ends when the ball is thrown beyond the 15-metre line. In fact referees often call Line-out over when that happens.

Waugh was not off-side and quite rightly play went on.