That the ball came off Red is C&O, at least to me it is (balls don't magically and suddenly change direction through over 90° for no reason) and apparently its obvious to WR referee assessors as well.
Ian, I realise that I don't have your expertise with video, so my apologies that the animated gif below consists of only three frames.
I used only the youtube video that The Fat gave in post #9, Print Screen, paste into Paint, crop and resize, and then
http://gifmaker.me/.
My apologies for the white bars at the top and bottom of the middle frame; my focus was on aligning the dark green paint of "Standard Life" so that there would be a bit of grass showing on either side of it.
But thank you for confirming what I had suspected all along. The ball does change direction by almost 90° all of a sudden, doesn't it? It is almost as if the ball was initially kicked in the rough direction of the touch-in-goal opposite the camera, and then deflected back towards the goal posts or even the near-side corner flag.
I asked you nicely if you would do the video job that I must admit I botched a little bit, and I don't mind that you didn't, but please understand that I'm not picking and choosing frames here.
The fact of the matter is, however, that if you put your mouse over where the ball is in the first frame, and then watch in which direction the ball travels, it is clearly and very obviously (even in real time, to me, but then I've only watched and played a few thousand rugby matches) impossible that there is a knock-on by Red, on the basis of the animated gif, and I am sure you can do better.
That leaves us with general play, but we have to remember the 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." - and we don't even know if the Red catcher played the ball, for sure, on the basis of this one angle. So not C&O on that.
There is of course also
11.3 (c) Intentionally touches ball. When an opponent intentionally touches the ball but does not catch it, the offside player is put onside. Again, if there is any possibility that Black #8 touched the ball, and we are giving him the benefit of the doubt, then surely we have to give the same benefit of the doubt to Red #16.
But then go all the way back to 11.1:
"A player who is in an offside position is not automatically penalised. / A player who receives an unintentional throw forward is not offside." This is "Spirit of the Game" stuff. We don't give penalties when attacking players hoping to receive the ball overrun their passer.
Ian_Cook, I've accepted that the game is better for the momentum interpretation of the forward pass, although it was John West who convinced me with "It's the physics of it". The problem - your problem - is that you aren't being consistent. I'm not asking you to be perfect; you already believe that you are; I am just asking you to be consistent, and above all impartial.
I was still a player at the previous Lions tour of NZ. Up until then I admired the ABs, having seen them play Canada in Lille in '91. Don't get me wrong, I still like the Kiwis in general, but the reason I bring this up is that you mentioned instinctive arms across the throat. I almost did that when I was 14 (my 3rd or perhaps 4th season), and I managed to pull out of the attempted dangerous tackle with the same sort of speed of thought Owens dropped the ball with.
Of course I want to win my own little contests, whether it was as a hooker winning ball against the head or taking you on, Ian, since I can't block you. But you aren't an eejit, either.
So what is your position on momentum nowadays?
