O'Young Offside?

[Ecky]

Sorry for taking a bit long, but finally! Here's my take on that offside call by Steve Walsh v Bulls.

My first reaction - as a supporter - was that he'd got it wrong. Then, when he appeared to change his mind and awarded a scrum, I thought he'd rectified his error. Then, when he changed his mind back (courtesy of a discussion with his AR), I thought he'd just gone mad.

HOWEVER with hindsight, and a quick check of the law book (yes, I have several, none of which have yet been anally inserted despite offers to do so by some players), I must recant. Even more so when I awarded exactly the same penalty in the big Wanneroo "upset" match v Soaks.

The relevant part of the law says:

Law 11 Offside and Onside in General Play

DEFINITION
...In general play a player is offside if the player is in front of a team mate who is carrying the ball, or in front of a team mate who last played the ball....

But one must also consider....

Law 12 - Knock on or Throw forward

DEFINITION KNOCK ON
A knock on occurs when a player loses possession of the ball and it goes forward, or when a player hits the ball forward with the hand or arm, or when the ball hits the hand or arm and goes forward, and the ball touches the ground or another player before the original player can catch it.
‘Forward’ means towards the opposing team’s dead ball line.
EXCEPTION
Charge down. If a player charges down the ball as an opponent kicks it, or immediately after the kick, it is not a knock on even though the ball may travel forward.

So, a charge down means he played the ball, but didn't knock it on. That was Fava. Chris O was in front of Fava and was next to play the ball. He was offside and was rightly penalised.

Sorry all, Mr Walsh was correct with his first instinct and correct to eventually award the penalty.

[JediKnight]

Thanks.

[Punkpapa]

Just a quick question RE the offside rule - it is one of those strange occurrences where you can be on-side at one stage of a phase, but suddenly offside during that phase due to a charge down?

[Moses]

How does the offside against Adam Freier that yielded the Force's fourth penalty stack up against the book?

To me it looked like afro-man had removed the ball from the ruck and would have been fair game..

[AndyS]

It is a tough one - my understanding was that, once someone has their hands on the ball, the ball is out. But whether he actually had the ball in hand or was just hovering, whether Freier jumped the gun...who knows. In any case it's been one of those rules that has been patchily applied all year and I think it was more a case of not reading the ref...he wasn't allowing much direct competition for the ball and was always going to blow it up based on earlier decisions.

[Moses]

I suppose Freier not reading the ref is understandable - he'd been on for about 2 minutes at the time

[gotheforce]

How about the 'late' and 'dangerous' hit that Mitchell did and got penalised by?
I thought that was aboslute BS. Even the commentators reckon that should be put in the Harden the F*** Up category. And watching the replay now, i realised it was the same aussie referee who screwed up the Hurricanes Sharks game the week before.

Like what Kearnsy and Kafer said in inside rugby last week, some of these international refs need to be given a good hit and find out what a real late and dangerous tackle is.

I have to say our 1st grade refs are top notch tho. Why dont we see any WA refs in there. I've been reffed by Skiba and Waetford before and they were really really good in handling my games.

[AndyS]

Yeah, that was my thought too, Moses.

Overall, I didn't think the refereeing too bad other than the howler by Marks when he called Mitchell. Not sure what happened there - maybe once he had called it it had to be acted on or something, but it was bloody ridiculous calling it in the first place and then even more so to pull play back. It was in the Forces favour (better a penalty there than the obstruction on halfway), but even so the crowd gave him some for getting in the way of play. You could hear it in Bowden's voice too - he was really not happy about having to stop play for something that was not a card.

[gotheforce]

Yeah. Bowden was a bit annoyed with having to call play back after 2 minutes after it happened. I think marks realised if he ever was going to get on tv this week, it was gonna be that moment. "Hi mom, im on tv!"

I thought Bowden did alright. Could have been a lot worse. Could have been Marks refereeing us instead.

[AndyS]

Heaven forbid. Dickinson next week, but breath held for the Brumbies match.

[Ecky]

I have to say our 1st grade refs are top notch tho. Why dont we see any WA refs in there. I've been reffed by Skiba and Waetford before and they were really really good in handling my games.

1) Gosh, thanks!
2) Skibes started 1st grade last year and did his first for this year last week. Pretty sure he's got another gig this week. Waetford makes his 1st grade debut this weekend - he's been appointed to referee some ARS games shortly, so we should see a fair bit more of him.

[Ecky]

It is a tough one - my understanding was that, once someone has their hands on the ball, the ball is out. But whether he actually had the ball in hand or was just hovering, whether Freier jumped the gun...who knows. In any case it's been one of those rules that has been patchily applied all year and I think it was more a case of not reading the ref...he wasn't allowing much direct competition for the ball and was always going to blow it up based on earlier decisions.

Well, why not ask the ref before the game starts? If you ask me I'll tell you it's out when it emerges (the old adage of when a bird can sh1t on the whole ball), definitely not just when hands are on. Think about it - your half will also get the same protection, and the ball can be in play for a bit more.