Rugby’s illegitimate child

A former test referee and one of the world’s foremost experts on the laws of the game calls it “the illegitimate child of rugby” and one thing the playing of the Super 12 has shown is that it is time someone claimed responsibility.

Unfortunately the problem isn’t being caused by just one bastard…a good few of the blighters are making their presence felt.

What we’re talking about here are the laws as they are applied to the tackle, immediately followed by the sequence of what happens next when we end up with a ruck or a maul as well as what constitutes on-sides and off-sides.

Watching the Super 12 has often driven me to exasperation because of the great disparity in the way in which referees rule on this area of the game.

And, before we go any further, let me state that I have great sympathy for referees. They are operating in a game which is moving at tremendous pace, their lines of sight are often blocked by the “lumbering oafs” of legend and they’re dealing in split seconds.

No bird’s eye view and no slow motion replays for the man with the whistle – his is the classic case of being up to his eyes in crocodiles and if the one in front doesn’t get him the one behind certainly will.

So this is not about the merits of refereeing; it is about the lawmakers sorting out an area of the game that is almost impossible to understand and therefore impossible to control. If the referees are having trouble making uniform rulings and the fans are unable to comprehend what is going can you imagine how hard it must be for the players.

One of the biggest problems is the pressure brought to bear on referees to “allow the game to flow” - probably brought about by the influence of Australia in recent years where, in the interests of competing with league and Aussie rules, worshipping the great god Continuity became paramount.

The upshot has been that we now have a game that is not played according to the way the laws are written down because referees are forced to make subjective decisions.

There have been 66 Super 12 matches completed thus far this season and I am willing to wager that I could extract from every one of them incidents in which the referee has made conflicting decisions on identical situations.

Small wonder the claim is constantly made that “the players don’t know the laws.” The truth is that they probably don’t because in certain areas of the game they don’t know how the law is going to be applied!

This leads to a form of anarchy in which teams study the habits of different referees and in which players come to be rated on their ability to push the envelope. It surely cannot be desirable, with all the things that ride on the outcome of matches, that we have a game in which players are schooled to go onto the field with the intent to see what they can get away with rather than to play by the rules?

Yet that is exactly where it has got to.

Take the ruck. To have a ruck all you need is one player from each team on their feet and in contact with each other with the ball on the ground between them. Note: One player from each team causes the ruck to be formed and you are not allowed to handle the ball in a ruck.

That’s what the law says. But how often do you see players arriving at such a formation, joining in and then either rolling the ball back with their hands or even picking it up and passing it back through their legs to a teammate – invariably the scrumhalf?

How often do you see players from either team heaving away shoulder to shoulder and the referee shouts “he’s on his feet!” and allows a player to grab the ball even though the ruck has clearly formed? This is hands in the ruck and it should be blown up but it is not.

Then there is the last foot provision. Players must join from on-side, or with their own goalline directly behind them, and not from the side or the direction of the touchline.

The big difference between a ruck and a maul is that in a ruck the ball must be on the ground and in a maul the ball must be carried. A ruck needs only two players whereas in a maul you need three; the man holding the ball and two others from each side. You must join from behind the hindmost player even if you end up alongside him.

Derek Robinson, in his educational book, “Rugby - A Player’s Guide to the Laws” (published by Collins Willow) provides us with a verse to explain it:
A ruck
Puts the ball in the muck.
Whereas a maul
Requires hands on the ball.
Now I know things happen extremely fast – certain reggae-haired flankers have, for instance, have developed a way of getting their hands on the ball from the side and then twisting their bodies to look as they came in from behind! – but something has to be done to regain consistency.

My suggestion is for the IRB and rugby unions to provide referees with unequivocal support in their efforts to “blow the law as it is written in the book.”

We’ll have to go through some pain because players have some ingrained bad habits, but eventually everyone will know that unless they join onside, unless they release the ball in the tackle, unless they leave the ball alone when making a tackle, unless they get clear of the ball… they will be penalised.

I know it is easier said than done and I am well aware of the danger of referees “blowing the game to death” but in the long run consistency will lead to a far better game than the “make it up as you go” jumble we have now. Too much is left to interpretation whereas regulations can only be truly successful if there are no gray areas.

A referee needs to be able tell an irate player or fuming coach: “I blew the law as it is written in the book.”

I have said it before, many times, but what is most needed is a complete re-write of the laws by a working group consisting of former and current international referees, coaches and players. Only when international players know exactly what is permitted, and what is not, will the rest of us have any chance of making sense of it.