Refereeing decisions

[ChargerWA]

Regarding the mauls, what frustrates me is that the team with the ball when they have been stopped are being allowed to swim around the opposition in effect. And I'm not talking about when a maul is turned. The appears to be clear instances of the opposing team keeping it straight and then the team with the ball mauls around the outside, players in opposition bind onto the ball carrier as he comes past and are being penalised from coming in from the side.

The reds did it tonight and brumbies 6 latched onto him and Walsh allowed it to play on, which seems like the correct ruling. But I've seen it adjudicated the other way too.

 

[Hugh Jarse]

If a player is resting their hand on a ruck or maul, are they part of the R/M or not?

Case 1: Moore in QLD v ACT. Moore was resting a hand on a player in the R/M. The player bound onto Moore. Was Moore in the R/M?

Case 1a: Hong Kong 7's. AUS v NZL. 3 AUS players had grasped a NZ player but a tackle had not been made. A maul had not been formed because a second NZL player was not bound over the ball. The NZL players knew the law and just lined up in their defence line behind the melee. In order to try to get a turnover for held up maul, one of the 3 AUS players involved in the attempted tackle reached out from the melee and grabbed a one NZL player to try and create a situation where there was a second NZL player bound over the ball. AUS were not penalised.

Case 2. 50% of Rolling mauls. There is a meerkat at the back with the ball tucked under one arm, with their other arm more or less resting on the shield of players in front of them. The rules require that player to be "bound" which is defined somewhere as shoulder and most of the arm in contact with the maul.

At times resting an arm on the maul is deemed to be part of the R/M, and others it is not.
Some players seem to think that an opponent in the vicinity of the R/M can be "encouraged" to join said R/M by "binding" onto them and dragging them into the R/M from their defensive position.

 

[Scoey]

The rules for binding on to a ruck and maul are separate and are covered by different laws. That being said they may be the same; I only looked up the ruck law.
Moore wasn't bound to the ruck as to be bound it must be with a full arm.
Moore was not bound to the ruck and it is illegal to hold on to a player who does not have the ball unless they are bound to a ruck or maul.


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[Hugh Jarse]

Plenty of 6, 7, 8 do not "bind" to scrums after the initial 1 second push is over. It's meerkat time.

 

[Scoey]

Exactly right. It's a law that is rarely enforced to the letter. Which is why it was so frustrating to see it enforced last night.


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[Budgie]

The rules for binding on to a ruck and maul are separate and are covered by different laws. That being said they may be the same; I only looked up the ruck law.
Moore wasn't bound to the ruck as to be bound it must be with a full arm.
Moore was not bound to the ruck and it is illegal to hold on to a player who does not have the ball unless they are bound to a ruck or maul.

So Moore was acting illegally in holding on to Quirke, because he was not part of the maul?

 

[boyo]

If a player is resting their hand on a ruck or maul, are they part of the R/M or not?

Case 1: Moore in QLD v ACT. Moore was resting a hand on a player in the R/M. The player bound onto Moore. Was Moore in the R/M?

Case 1a: Hong Kong 7's. AUS v NZL. 3 AUS players had grasped a NZ player but a tackle had not been made. A maul had not been formed because a second NZL player was not bound over the ball. The NZL players knew the law and just lined up in their defence line behind the melee. In order to try to get a turnover for held up maul, one of the 3 AUS players involved in the attempted tackle reached out from the melee and grabbed a one NZL player to try and create a situation where there was a second NZL player bound over the ball. AUS were not penalised.

Case 2. 50% of Rolling mauls. There is a meerkat at the back with the ball tucked under one arm, with their other arm more or less resting on the shield of players in front of them. The rules require that player to be "bound" which is defined somewhere as shoulder and most of the arm in contact with the maul.

At times resting an arm on the maul is deemed to be part of the R/M, and others it is not.
Some players seem to think that an opponent in the vicinity of the R/M can be "encouraged" to join said R/M by "binding" onto them and dragging them into the R/M from their defensive position.

17.2 JOINING A MAUL
(c) Placing a hand on another player in the maul does not constitute binding.
Sanction: Penalty kick

 

[suckerforred]

So:

16.2 Joining a ruck
(b)

A player joining a ruck must bind on a team-mate or an opponent, using the whole arm. The bind must either precede, or be simultaneous with, contact with any other part of the body of the player joining the ruck.​

Sanction: Penalty kick
(c)

Placing a hand on another player in the ruck does not constitute binding.​

Sanction: Penalty kick
Was Moore part of the ruck? Apparently not.
Did Quirk committ an offence by grabing Moore? I can't find anything specific mentioned in the Laws, but I do recall Mr Bray stating that the ref's will be 'cracking down' on players being held onto/pulled into the ruck. So Yes I would say he did.

Therefore, No try appears to be the correct call.

No to the punch:

10.4 Dangerous play and misconduct
(a)

Punching or striking. A player must not strike an opponent with the fist or arm, including the elbow, shoulder, head or knee(s).​

Sanction: Penalty kick

So, no requirement to give Moore a card, just a penalty. Since Walsh was already playing a penalty advantage which was closer to the front of the posts, Quirk had infringed before the punch was thrown, play was returned to the previous penalty.

In a round about way they got it right.

 

[Scoey]

The thing with the punch SFR is that it breaks a number of laws.
Striking, intentionally offending and retaliation.
Each of those carry a sanction of a penalty kick.
Under intentionally offending the sanction is a penalty kick but it also notes that the player involved must be admonished, cautioned or temporarily suspended.
I think this is why a YC is oft the standard response for a retaliatory punch.


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[suckerforred]

You are correct Scoey. From memory he was 'admonished' though. So should they be 'temporarily suspended' when admonished or is it only when they are cautioned that they are also 'temporarily suspended'? The Laws really are a nightmare......
10.5 Sanctions
(a)

Any player who infringes any part of the Foul Play Law must be admonished, or cautioned and temporarily suspended for a period of ten minutes’ playing time, or sent-off.​

(b)

A player who has been cautioned and temporarily suspended who then commits a second cautionable offence within the Foul Play Law must be sent-off.​

 

[Sully]

I didn't see any admonishing. S far as I can tell Walsh never spoke to him about the punch.

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[Scoey]

I agree with Sully. I don't remember Moore being spoken to at all. As with most players (myself included) that have a guilty conscience, Moore spent the time off period wandering around trying to look innocent and trying not to make eye contact with any officials. ;-)

The ref doesn't need to admonish first. He simply must do one of the given options.


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[suckerforred]

Fair enough Sully. I had my sports ears in & I thought that I heard Walsh say something along the lines of 'not to take the law into his own hands'. He might have said it to Mowen perhaps.

I could also be halucinating......

 

[Braveheart81]

Fair enough Sully. I had my sports ears in & I thought that I heard Walsh say something along the lines of 'not to take the law into his own hands'. He might have said it to Mowen perhaps.

I could also be halucinating..

Yeah, Walsh definitely made that statement but I agree that it was to Mowen, not Moore.

It was a tricky situation in that Moore certainly shouldn't have struck out at Quirk, but Quirk made it look like he'd been flawed by a brutal punch but on the replay you could see that there wasn't a lot of contact and it certainly wouldn't have done any damage.

Moore shouldn't have done what he did, but the last thing you want to encourage is the obvious spoiling tactic of holding onto an opposition player and then overreacting to their atttempts to get rid of you.

It was the right call in the end to not award the try but Moore should have probably got a yellow card. If you're going to stick to the letter of the law and yellow card any attempted punches then you need to stamp out the professional fouls that are seeking to draw a punch out of someone.

If a player can't take the laws into their own hands (which I absolutely agree with) then the referee has to ensure the players don't need to.

 

[Hugh Jarse]

So:

16.2 Joining a ruck
(b)

A player joining a ruck must bind on a team-mate or an opponent, using the whole arm. The bind must either precede, or be simultaneous with, contact with any other part of the body of the player joining the ruck.​

Sanction: Penalty kick
(c)

Placing a hand on another player in the ruck does not constitute binding.​

Sanction: Penalty kick
Was Moore part of the ruck? Apparently not.
<snip>

So if Moore wasn't part of the ruck, because he wasn't bound to it with a whole arm, then by placing a hand on another player in the ruck, he is open to being sanctioned with a Penalty Kick against his team. IIRC, Moore placed his hand on a player in the ruck, before the player in the ruck placed their hand on him (Quirke grabbing Moore).

So was the order of offences (1) Moore (placing a hand on a player), then (2) Quirke (placing a hand on a player), then (3) Moore (striking, retaliating, or intentionally offending) all while under Red Penalty advantage?

Two wrongs don't make it right, but were there three wrongs?

 

[boyo]

That's a negative.

 

[Braveheart81]

It's not illegal for Moore to rest his hand on Quirk's shoulder. It just means he's not part of the ruck because he wasn't bound.

The penalty in the law above relates to actions that are permitted by someone in the ruck but by virtue of not being bound makes him not part of the ruck in my opinion.

 

[Ruggo]

The standard of refereeing has been shit all year. These refs are payed for their work unlike the volunteers in club land so I have know problem calling them out. Lyndon Bray also seems to have lost the plot. I hate seeing rugby get butchered by their incompetence.

 

[Hugh Jarse]

This happened again in the Aus vs USA Plate Final and one of the Australian players pulled one of the USA players who was standing nearby into the tackle contest to make it a maul (one USA player had the ball and was being held up by a couple of Australian players).

At least the Aussies learned the law from the quarter final to the plate final!

Isn't this similar to what Quirke did?

 

[boyo]

No