I know there won't be a definite answer but I wanted to get an idea of how others would deal with this situation.
Blue vs Red, ball is loose on the ground, two players from each team make contact over the ball and a ruck forms. Several other players from each team join the ruck and the ball is quite deep in it. Red scrum half crouches down and starts digging for the ball, such that he's actually reaching past the midway point of the ruck onto the blue side of it and half his body is in the ruck although he is not technically bound to it. The ball is still contestable and could could have been worked back by using their feet. Do you let him dig or call him for having hands in?
I called "no #9 the ball is still contestable". That needed further explanation and at the next break I said that the ball hadn't been one, and that by digging that deep he is in the middle of the ruck and can't play it.
Thoughts?
Blue vs Red, ball is loose on the ground, two players from each team make contact over the ball and a ruck forms. Several other players from each team join the ruck and the ball is quite deep in it. Red scrum half crouches down and starts digging for the ball, such that he's actually reaching past the midway point of the ruck onto the blue side of it and half his body is in the ruck although he is not technically bound to it. The ball is still contestable and could could have been worked back by using their feet. Do you let him dig or call him for having hands in?
I called "no #9 the ball is still contestable". That needed further explanation and at the next break I said that the ball hadn't been one, and that by digging that deep he is in the middle of the ruck and can't play it.
Thoughts?