Not straight. Again. And again.

[DocY]

Just because a decision can be technically justified by law does not mean it should necessarily be made.

This should be on the first page of the next lawbook!

 

[ChrisR]

I think that there are more difficult scenarios, and the more likely.

1. After three NS you advise the skipper that he may wish to change throwers as the next NS will be a PK so he may wish to consider an alternate thrower. The new thrower chucks it NS.

2. After three NS you are thinking "The next one is a PK" but it goes in just fine. But LO number 5 is NS. Six and 7 are OK but 8 is crook. Thinking PK again but 9 is fine .......

3. At 5 min Red get their first LO and throw NS. At 25 min they get their second LO and throw NS. At 55 min they get their third LO and throw NS. At 75 min ............

 

[crossref]

I suggest he is not DELIBERATELY offending.

Rather he is incapable of conforming to the requirement.

A not so subtle distinction.

As fopr generally, players that deliberately break the laws, probably do so UNTIL they are caught. Then they tend to stop because on the whole its not a positive move to do so. This bloke wasn;t capable of stopping - because je wasn't capable of starting!

didds

I think that we'll never really know what the thrower thought about all this.
perhaps somewhere in another message board for players there is a parallel thread where the intentions of the player are clear and they are all specualting about what was going through the ref's mind..

 

[Pegleg]

The reference, in reply to Ian, to deliberate offending was contextual to his point.

As said you take the level of the game into consideration when you apply standards to deliberate offending. It is in the law book!

10.3 (c)

(c) Repeated infringements: standard applied by referee. When the referee decides how
many offences constitute repeated infringement, the referee must always apply a strict
standard in representative and senior matches. When a player offends three times the
referee must caution that player.

The referee may relax this standard in junior or minor matches, where infringements may
be the result of poor knowledge of the Laws or lack of skill.


So you set your standards according to the game and apply them.

All that taken into acount If all his throws are going to his team on both sides of the pitch, the claim that: "He's just crap" does not hold water. At best he would regularly skew throw left or right of a completly random mix of the two. If his crap throwing always finds his middle jumper's outside arm, I'm smelling the beef bi-product!

 

[DocY]

I think that there are more difficult scenarios, and the more likely.

1. After three NS you advise the skipper that he may wish to change throwers as the next NS will be a PK so he may wish to consider an alternate thrower. The new thrower chucks it NS.

2. After three NS you are thinking "The next one is a PK" but it goes in just fine. But LO number 5 is NS. Six and 7 are OK but 8 is crook. Thinking PK again but 9 is fine .......

3. At 5 min Red get their first LO and throw NS. At 25 min they get their second LO and throw NS. At 55 min they get their third LO and throw NS. At 75 min ............

I can't see a penalty in 2 or 3 being good for the game, though maybe it's the level I usually referee at - I expect that kind of incompetence. And I doubt by the time it got to the 75th minute I'd remember lineouts 20 minutes earlier were not straight.

1 is a bit more interesting, but I probably wouldn't penalise. If I've spoken to the captain and hooker and said "look, you're running the risk of a PK, you've got to change something" and they do change what they're doing (even if they get that wrong, too), I'm going to be far more sympathetic than if they carry on doing the same thing. When incompetence is rife, I'm loath to penalise it, but if it's 'wilful incompetence' I have no such qualms.

 

[Pegleg]

Also you apply your standards mindful of 10.3 (c).

 

[crossref]

At best he would regularly skew throw left or right of a completly random mix of the two. If his crap throwing always finds his middle jumper's outside arm, I'm smelling the beef bi-product!

treating this like a lateral-thinking puzzle : the solution is
- his throws always skew to one side (like the way some golfers always hook, but never slice)
- there was a strong cross wind, so that all kicks went out, and all throws came in from the same touchline
- so his skew throwing always favoured the same team

 

[FlipFlop]

And lets be honest - throwing the ball in straight is not that difficult. The skill is in throwing it to the right place (height, distance) with the right timings and speed. And the shorter the throw, the more likely it will be straight.

Even at our lowest level (and with juniors), the ball manages to go in straight most the time, especially to the front. And if it is not straight, it is (at the lower levels) it isn't consistent, and normally doesn't favour either side.

So if I escalate, and team keep doing the same thing, and they have been asked to change. And still they continue doing the same thing, then I enforce a change. In other words - let them try other things, if they don't, I make them try different things. And the management continues form there.

So to answer the questions about multiple YCs. Unlikely to happen. If Team don't want to change, we YC (eventually) for consistently throwing to their own team. New thrower - warning that straight is good, but I don't expect the ball to go to their own team everytime if it is NS. If it continues, tell the captain to try someone else, or risk a 2nd YC. In other words - manage the new situation, but don't shy away from more cards.

But how many lineouts are there in a game. I think there would have to be a whole lot of LOs to get to a 2nd YC. So that really isn't a sensible question.

And would you not YC a SH for constantly putting the ball in NS into the scrum?

 

[DocY]

And would you not YC a SH for constantly putting the ball in NS into the scrum?

I have more sympathy with that - I don't think it's possible to accidentally feed a scrum not straight. In practice, though, you give a FK the first time and they rarely feed NS again.

 

[OB..]

I wish we could ask the thrower's skipper what HE thought was going on!

didds

That is obviously the correct approach by the referee when the crooked throws are clearly deliberate.
If you get a situation that is bordering on farcical, get the captains together and see if they can help sort it out.

 

[OB..]

I don't think it's possible to accidentally feed a scrum not straight.

At a lineout your team may be on either left or right. At a scrum they are always on your right.

The scrum half will always shade the throw towards his right. The "accidental" part comes in when he overcooks it.

 

[SimonSmith]

h

This us a grew discussion, and thanks to all the commenters thus far.

I have so far asked two questions neither of which gave had any answers. Si in case they were missed here tgay are again

1) why would the thrower, his skipper, and the team in general choose to persist deliberately in a doing something that has no upside?

I don't know. Low rugby IQ, low team IQ, hooker is a lot older than the captain... At some stage I didn't continue to worry about the "why"

2) what will the ref do when three throwers are in the bin and how is this a solution?

In all seriousness, the chances that there are three people, who are the first choices, incapable of throwing the ball straight 7 yards are so slim...
The replacement thrower could hit his man (not just get it in straight, but actually hit his man) from his first go. No issues. You can look at it this way: we got to the right solution, using every management trick I could think of to avoid the YC, and being generous as to when I thought "repeated" was now an issue.
How much of the problem/solution is on me? Well, the captain had an easy solution to his problem and elected, for whatever dumbass reason to not use it. Is that my fault?

 

[Pegleg]

No it's not Simon. The players were the problem and they had the solution. We can't force them to use it.

 

[Pegleg]

treating this like a lateral-thinking puzzle : the solution is
- his throws always skew to one side (like the way some golfers always hook, but never slice)
- there was a strong cross wind, so that all kicks went out, and all throws came in from the same touchline
- so his skew throwing always favoured the same team

Except we have been told it was on both sides of the pitch and wind was not an issue.

 

[Pegleg]

That is obviously the correct approach by the referee when the crooked throws are clearly deliberate.
If you get a situation that is bordering on farcical, get the captains together and see if they can help sort it out.

Indeed give the "ownership" of the problem back to the players. "Your problem guys. sort it or I will!"