Bungle
Referees in England
- Joined
- Nov 5, 2006
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- Current Referee grade:
- Level 7
Two parts to this conundrum. It happened last week in a BUSA game down at Barts. They have a huge in-goal area (prob 20m deep) which creates its own challenges. Anyway,
Red defending. Red SH 2m from goal-line passes back to Red kicker who was standing very deep in-goal. He kicks ahead, ball is a long time in the air and it is not clear if it heading into touch and is just about going to land in the field of play. Blue winger moves up and is close enough to be defined as ‘waiting to play the ball’. Red SH moves towards him and the ball, I shout ‘wait’ and also note that the red kicker hasn’t bothered to come up. Instinct tells me ‘offside’. Ball then lands about 2m infront of Blue winger right on the touch line, bobbles around, doesn’t touch any player and then goes into touch just on the wrong side of the flag so it was touch in-goal.
By this time I had called advantage for offside infront of the kicker as Red SH hadn’t stopped, I knew the relevant law stated players must not move towards the place where the ball lands until put onside and there was a probably chance that it would have been played by the blue winger. I award penalty on 5m where Red SH was moving towards ball with scrum option 5m level with where the kicker kicked.
I was challenged (graciously at the end I must add – both perfect teams discipline wise) on two counts:
1. Can you be off-side infront of the kicker if the kick is from in-goal?
2. As the ball went into touch in-goal, wouldn’t it have been better to have waited before calling offside then offered a scrum 5m at the point where the ball was played into the in-goal.
I should add that for no 2 I had already pinged Blue twice for offside infront of the kicker…
I’ll tell you what I said and why, but first I would love to hear your views as this was one of those wonderfully quirky situations that I love as a referee. Suffice it to say, players, the coach and myself had a good debate about it in great spirit.
Red defending. Red SH 2m from goal-line passes back to Red kicker who was standing very deep in-goal. He kicks ahead, ball is a long time in the air and it is not clear if it heading into touch and is just about going to land in the field of play. Blue winger moves up and is close enough to be defined as ‘waiting to play the ball’. Red SH moves towards him and the ball, I shout ‘wait’ and also note that the red kicker hasn’t bothered to come up. Instinct tells me ‘offside’. Ball then lands about 2m infront of Blue winger right on the touch line, bobbles around, doesn’t touch any player and then goes into touch just on the wrong side of the flag so it was touch in-goal.
By this time I had called advantage for offside infront of the kicker as Red SH hadn’t stopped, I knew the relevant law stated players must not move towards the place where the ball lands until put onside and there was a probably chance that it would have been played by the blue winger. I award penalty on 5m where Red SH was moving towards ball with scrum option 5m level with where the kicker kicked.
I was challenged (graciously at the end I must add – both perfect teams discipline wise) on two counts:
1. Can you be off-side infront of the kicker if the kick is from in-goal?
2. As the ball went into touch in-goal, wouldn’t it have been better to have waited before calling offside then offered a scrum 5m at the point where the ball was played into the in-goal.
I should add that for no 2 I had already pinged Blue twice for offside infront of the kicker…
I’ll tell you what I said and why, but first I would love to hear your views as this was one of those wonderfully quirky situations that I love as a referee. Suffice it to say, players, the coach and myself had a good debate about it in great spirit.