charge down

[Dickie E]

It does seem reasonable to conclude though that if the team of officals had thought that the ball was touched in flight they would have awarded a 5m scrum on the premise that if the touch was irrelevant then there would be no point in discussing it at all?

what if the touch had been inadvertent? For example, defender had back to kicker and ball deflects from him over DBL. Restart?

 

[crossref]

what if the touch had been inadvertent? For example, defender had back to kicker and ball deflects from him over DBL. Restart?

For me it's still going to be a 5m scrum, based on the defender touched it last.

Reasons
1 - consistency with how we judge touch
2 - there are scenarios where the ball wouldn't have gone dead unless it hit the defender (perhaps attacker was kicking for touch in the corner) and I don't want to be judging where the ball might have gone if it hadn't hit the defender.

 

[OB..]

I have replayed my recording the incident frame by frame and am comfortable that he did not actually touch the ball.