Offside at a kick off

[BigDan50]

Oh dear, slow news day🥱🥱

[TigerFeetSteve]

Couldn't agree more.

Perhaps we could have a "Hawkeye" equivalent in the premiership? The players have transponders in their shirts for flagging up high impacts that might merit HIAs. Wouldn't think it that difficult to do for kick offs. If the player's transponder was in front of the line at the moment of impact -penalty. Harder for rucks as tech won't know if the ball is out.

Simple enough for forward passes too. Would get rid of which way was the arm pointing twaddle and whether it was clearly forwards or not. I may well scream if I hear another ref mention momentum! The basic premice of rugby is that the ball can only have forward momentum whilst being carried or kicked forwards. Everything else is just a silly excuse for allowing forward passes.

Not a bad shout, I've wondered given now that wendyball put chips in balls why they don't auto do offside based on gps tracking. Ball can then sense impact of a kick, correlate vs player positions at the time and you'd get automatic offside given immediately, ok so body position makes a difference but would be consistent every single time and removing the is his fingernail past the other guy... If you can ensure consistency then players can adapt.

If the ball in rugby was also chipped it could do the same thing sense the moment of impact with a boot and scan player positions to auto say if they are offside and then would auto play them onside if an onside player passes them before another kick.

Do enough testing and make the in-ball chip smart enough you could teach it to distinguish skin, shirt and grass (pressure mapping on types of surface is great) you then do away with controversy did he ground it was it held up did he drop it etc etc.

All these things would make the game more consistent, ok it may be a slight tweak to ruels ie. Offsid is the back of your neck not being in front of the ball rather than your whole body but to me it makes sense

[wellstiger]

Refs just the person/s with the whistle.
Solley reliant on TMO's if they don't see it it didn't happen. If the TMO turns a blind eye then we are "doomed I say doomed"
And what do second and third officials do.Second guess at scrum time cause they don't watch the line - obviously by this feed.
Hooker is shown the spot the teams are pinged for encroaching at the line Hooker takes a step to the right, step forward "Lets do the timewarp again"

How refreshing it was seeing N 0wens in the Europe. Common sense, No nonsense, My way or yellow.
Standard has fell way short.

[Noggs]

Simple enough for forward passes too. Would get rid of which way was the arm pointing twaddle and whether it was clearly forwards or not. I may well scream if I hear another ref mention momentum! The basic premice of rugby is that the ball can only have forward momentum whilst being carried or kicked forwards. Everything else is just a silly excuse for allowing forward passes.

Sorry but you are wrong on this one. If a ball is being carried at speed it has a forward momentum. If it is passed sideways but slightly backward you may not cancel out all of the forward momentum so the ball can be caught in front of the position it was passed from. The pass itself was backwards and hence not a 'forward' pass.

For this reason judgement has to be made on the direction of the ball as it leaves the hand to determine whether or not the pass was forward.

Over to you for the scream

[TigerFeetSteve]

Simple enough for forward passes too. Would get rid of which way was the arm pointing twaddle and whether it was clearly forwards or not. I may well scream if I hear another ref mention momentum! The basic premice of rugby is that the ball can only have forward momentum whilst being carried or kicked forwards. Everything else is just a silly excuse for allowing forward passes.

Sorry but you are wrong on this one. If a ball is being carried at speed it has a forward momentum. If it is passed sideways but slightly backward you may not cancel out all of the forward momentum so the ball can be caught in front of the position it was passed from. The pass itself was backwards and hence not a 'forward' pass.

For this reason judgement has to be made on the direction of the ball as it leaves the hand to determine whether or not the pass was forward.

Over to you for the scream

What you're saying is that a man running forwards at 5m/s has the ball. The ball prior to release is therefore travelling forwards at 5m/s.

If he releases the pass the ball then has it's forward component of travel as 2m/s, then relative velocity it was released by the player is 3m/s backwards, yet it's still overall travelling forwards.

My suggestion of adding a sensor in the ball, if it can track it's location and velocity it can work out if it velocity forwards increases or decreases once released, ok it needs development but technology is there to make stuff like this work be consistent (whether they want to allow for forward momentum or not)

Ok it's not super cheap atm but if the RFU aren't looking into trials on different sensor software to position players and ball in 3D space then they're not being very smart

[Noggs]

Isn't this all a bit OTT.

Most forward passes are picked up by the officials on the field or looked at by the fourth official if a try is scored. As already mentioned the game is complex and there are many 'errors' made in every game as officials will not get it right every time and sometimes 'judgements' have to be made. Overall it ends up as 'swings and roundabouts' although I do believe that more should be done to achieve a better consistency of approach.

[TigerFeetSteve]

Isn't this all a bit OTT.

Most forward passes are picked up by the officials on the field or looked at by the fourth official if a try is scored. As already mentioned the game is complex and there are many 'errors' made in every game as officials will not get it right every time and sometimes 'judgements' have to be made. Overall it ends up as 'swings and roundabouts' although I do believe that more should be done to achieve a better consistency of approach.

Potentially it is OTT but unlike something like VAR in football which seems to cause lots of debate and consternation, if they did utilize real time ball and player tracking then a ref could have a realtime update (not a 5 min video check review) that is consistent to all teams all of the time. This also allows officials to focus on other aspects of the game which may increase standards of refereeing in other areas.

Look I'm not saying it needs to happen now or in the next 2 years or longer but certainly a 99.999% efficient system to realtime asses things is possibly a huge leap forward in internationals and could improve things.

[Cardiff Tig]

I think a simple solution would be to introduce a review system like tennis or cricket. Normally the opposing teams know when something should be blown up for. Would remove the need for the TMO to stop the game when neither team cares.

[loretta]

Simple enough for forward passes too. Would get rid of which way was the arm pointing twaddle and whether it was clearly forwards or not. I may well scream if I hear another ref mention momentum! The basic premice of rugby is that the ball can only have forward momentum whilst being carried or kicked forwards. Everything else is just a silly excuse for allowing forward passes.

Sorry but you are wrong on this one. If a ball is being carried at speed it has a forward momentum. If it is passed sideways but slightly backward you may not cancel out all of the forward momentum so the ball can be caught in front of the position it was passed from. The pass itself was backwards and hence not a 'forward' pass.

For this reason judgement has to be made on the direction of the ball as it leaves the hand to determine whether or not the pass was forward.

Over to you for the scream

I'm screaming too!

Your argument relies on your point of reference. If its the pitch, it's simple. If the ball passes forwards relative to the pitch, it's pretty easy to interpret. It only gets complicated when you start using the passing player as the point of reference and then the whole momentum malarky raises it's head. And it's riddled with inconsistency and complication - hence the constant "interpretation". For example, as said the ball leaves the hands of the passing player with forward movement, which depends on how fast the player was running. So, if Johnny May passes the ball at full tilt, the ball will be travelling forwards (relative to the pitch) far faster than some useless lump of a prop. We'll use Kieran Brookes as an example. Interpreting whether a pass from May is forwards is far harder, therefore, than those from Brookes.

Having heard many times how hard it is to overcome the forward direction of the ball when its passed, I've done a few calculations. In order to avoid bias, I used a certain Mr Bolt's statistics to represent the player passing the ball, and passing speed from records of passes from several 9's. As expected, the player receiving the ball has to be well behind Mr Bolt, and somewhat nearer than the width of the pitch away when the leaves the hands.

But, guess what! It's not impossible!!

What's more, it's not even that hard! You just have to pass the ball backwards at a great enough angle to overcome it's forward movement. Of course, the faster you're moving, the greater the angle, but if it's possible for Bolt, it should be possible for anyone.

Now, all we need are some well paid professionals who have the time to get good at passing a ball while running.

[jgriffin]

Simple enough for forward passes too. Would get rid of which way was the arm pointing twaddle and whether it was clearly forwards or not. I may well scream if I hear another ref mention momentum! The basic premice of rugby is that the ball can only have forward momentum whilst being carried or kicked forwards. Everything else is just a silly excuse for allowing forward passes.

Sorry but you are wrong on this one. If a ball is being carried at speed it has a forward momentum. If it is passed sideways but slightly backward you may not cancel out all of the forward momentum so the ball can be caught in front of the position it was passed from. The pass itself was backwards and hence not a 'forward' pass.

For this reason judgement has to be made on the direction of the ball as it leaves the hand to determine whether or not the pass was forward.

Over to you for the scream

I'm screaming too!

Your argument relies on your point of reference. If its the pitch, it's simple. If the ball passes forwards relative to the pitch, it's pretty easy to interpret. It only gets complicated when you start using the passing player as the point of reference and then the whole momentum malarky raises it's head. And it's riddled with inconsistency and complication - hence the constant "interpretation". For example, as said the ball leaves the hands of the passing player with forward movement, which depends on how fast the player was running. So, if Johnny May passes the ball at full tilt, the ball will be travelling forwards (relative to the pitch) far faster than some useless lump of a prop. We'll use Kieran Brookes as an example. Interpreting whether a pass from May is forwards is far harder, therefore, than those from Brookes.

Having heard many times how hard it is to overcome the forward direction of the ball when its passed, I've done a few calculations. In order to avoid bias, I used a certain Mr Bolt's statistics to represent the player passing the ball, and passing speed from records of passes from several 9's. As expected, the player receiving the ball has to be well behind Mr Bolt, and somewhat nearer than the width of the pitch away when the leaves the hands.

But, guess what! It's not impossible!!

What's more, it's not even that hard! You just have to pass the ball backwards at a great enough angle to overcome it's forward movement. Of course, the faster you're moving, the greater the angle, but if it's possible for Bolt, it should be possible for anyone.

Now, all we need are some well paid professionals who have the time to get good at passing a ball while running.

This really only arose once the concept of the 'flat' pass arrived from RL. If you look at games from the 80s, say, and many lower league games, players stand in more of an echelon formation, which obviates the needs for these arguments. But then, offside was also policed in them days and scrums were over and done in 30 secs.

[wellstiger]

Lets be careful what we wish for, as someone alluded to a Hawkeye style of monitoring.
Will we get the elbow joint or big toe or a lock of hair offside rule ( as in wendy ball)
We see what TMO offers in Not a forward pass as hands pointing backward ( even though the trajectory is 1-2 meters forward)
Or , deliberate knock on on intercept because he attempted to lift the ball one handedly.

Oh sorry - I forgot - it happens already.... silly me - Too much time in COVID bubble......

[JP14]

I feel for football fans in that they have only had 2/3 years of VAR whereas we have had TMOs (at international level) for over 17 years now and we still haven't worked out the best way to use them.

[Old Hob]

I realise it's been said before (but what hasn't here?) but the difficulties with the TMO are
1. Trying to force a decision on the referee - "have another look Mike .. I just want you to have another look"
and
2. The inordinate amount of time and number of times an incident has to be replayed. Most often, one or two views and it can be decided but TMO's need to find their glasses, or turn their chair round or something because they are unable to see what everyone, home, away and neutral can see. Self-aggrandizement? Justifying the expense? Agents for blood pressure medicine? No idea

[Noggs]

The proposal then is to change the rules with respect to forward passes?

If you have two players running at speed with one on the others shoulder a short inside pass leaving the hand backwards is still likely to be received ahead of the point the ball was passed due to momentum. To try to visually pick up such a pass as being 'forward' if the rules were changed would be virtually impossible in real time so it is much easier for the officials to make the judgement as now by looking at the motion of the player making the pass.

I am convinced that we don't need to change the law on this.

[Old Hob]

Whatever we think about the laws and officiating it is an oasis of sanity compared to what I'm seeing. I'm watching Stormers v Pumas at the moment (19. 30 Fri 23rd) and forward passes, really not straight line-out throws, offsides, scrum infringements all completely ignored. Gross knock-ons are noticed but other than that...