[Law] Question from World Rugby law quiz

Balones

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As OB ... regularly says, the laws are not written to legal statute law standards. The laws says you can go to ground to play the ball but don’t say specifically how long after you go to ground you must play the ball. Can you go to ground and wait for the ball to come to you before playing it? Can you wait in touch before playing/touching it?
 

crossref


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As OB ... regularly says, the laws are not written to legal statute law standards. The laws says you can go to ground to play the ball but don’t say specifically how long after you go to ground you must play the ball. Can you go to ground and wait for the ball to come to you before playing it? Can you wait in touch before playing/touching it?

I think that's clutching at a second straw
13.3 is very clea
 
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L'irlandais

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Is 13.3 clearer than Law Clarification 1 2012?
[LAWS]3. Law 22.4 (g) only applies if the ball is on the ground. [/LAWS]In the OP the ball is on the ground. The player in touch in goal places a hand on it Try scored. If this were no longer the case, they would have removed these lines from the LoTG. Your rereading is informative, but hardly to be taken as Gospel as yet. WR would need to approve of you interpretation first. Pretty sure I have seen a try awarded in a similar situation on TV recently (as long ago as the summer tests perhaps, but definitely post 2018 changes.)

What is clear is that the law quiz is testing knowledge of this very point in law. Do they update the quiz as often as they update the LoTG? Who knows?

Off your feet is out of the game, would need to be enforced at ruck time, before one starts applying it willy nilly all over the place. Won’t be convinced by your reading of 13.3, until such time as we see rucks cleaned up, as per both images at the top of Law 15.
 
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Balones

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The nuances of law are discussed at meetings I attend quite often and it is understood that the laws can be a bit vague in places and even wrong if a particular law is given to interpret a situation it was not intended to do or wasn't thought of by the law makers/writers. The word we use at meetings is 'intention' and use that to shape our thinking. What was the 'intention' of the law makers/writers in this situation is the mantra we are encouraged to adopt. Admittedly this doesn't always address some situations but it is a good basis when the law is not clear.
 

Rich_NL

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I think that's clutching at a second straw
13.3 is very clea

But if it turns out the answer is "award the try", would you accept that as the intentions of the lawmakers and that 13.3 is badly written regarding grounding?
 

crossref


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But if it turns out the answer is "award the try", would you accept that as the intentions of the lawmakers and that 13.3 is badly written regarding grounding?

But the answer isn't a try. It's a PK . law 13
 

Rich_NL

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Have you done the law quiz, or are you certain of infallibility?
 

Balones

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Where exactly does the OP question come from? Any link? I can’t see it in the WR Law exam.
 

tewdric


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Its a direct copy and paste from the online exam. The answer was award a try.
 

crossref


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alas it's not the only error in the quiz ... They don't always keep it up to date

If anyone still needs convincing consider the same scenario , but with the player on the ground in the in goal itself
 
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Balones

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alas it's not the only error in the quiz ... They don't always keep it up to date

If anyone still needs convincing consider the same scenario , but with the player on the ground in the in goal itself

It certainly includes questions on the ‘new’ laws that you have recently mentioned. Also only 21 laws are listed so it must be up to date since the simplified rewrite.
 
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L'irlandais

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Where exactly does the OP question come from? Any link? I can’t see it in the WR Law exam.
It’s on the World Rugby website, follow the link «*Laws of The Game*» at the top of RRF forum page
then you need to select the «*Passport site*» pulldown at the top of that page and select Laws of the Game again. Which will bring you to this log-in page

Give that the quiz has been updated to include new laws, and yet they have chosen not to delete this 21.15 surely shows us they didn’t consider (rightly or wrongly) it was affected by their changes. Clearly at some point in time the WR law makers believed it was okay to award a try if an attacker, off his feet, in touch-ingoal grounded the ball, providing he wasn’t holding the ball. Equally clear is that they haven’t sought to ammend that point in law, as yet.
 
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Rich_NL

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Why do you think the Quiz over rules the Law Book ?

I don't, I'm just not a Law Book fundamentalist deriving truth from text.

It's widely accepted that the law book is poorly written, the revision ill thought-out, and that the laws as written down miss corner cases and have unintended consequences that don't work out "right". Some people even discuss these online ;)

So if I see a conflict between the law book and common worldwide practice, or top referee decisions, or law tests, I don't assume the book has precedence, I take it as a cue to discuss with experienced refs and peers.
 

L'irlandais

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alas it's not the only error in the quiz ... They don't always keep it up to date

If anyone still needs convincing consider the same scenario , but with the player on the ground in the in goal itself
Let’s consider that:
The ball is stationary on the ground inside the defending team's in-goal area. An attacking player lying on the ground [in touch-] in-goal, reaches over [the touch-in-goal line] and places his hand on the ball."
Sorry I cannot find the strikeout, if we remove the mention «*in touch-in-goal*» and référence to «*the touch-in-goal line«*; as you say the player is lying on the ground in-goal, What is the correct decision?
 

crossref


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Let’s consider that:
The ball is stationary on the ground inside the defending team's in-goal area. An attacking player lying on the ground [in touch-] in-goal, reaches over [the touch-in-goal line] and places his hand on the ball."
Sorry I cannot find the strikeout, if we remove the mention «*in touch-in-goal*» and référence to «*the touch-in-goal line«*; as you say the player is lying on the ground in-goal, What is the correct decision?

PK under Law 13
The game is played by players on their feet
A player on the ground cannot play the ball

It's a very straightforward Law, .. isnt it ?
 
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L'irlandais

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Yet the laws of the game specifically allow a tackled player (ie brought to ground) to score a try.
The notion that Law 13.3 trumps Law 8.2 is a personal interpretation. A more widely accepted interpretation might be that if the LoTG don’t specifically forbid something, then it’s allowed. I accept your point of view that the ramifications of 13.3 are tremendous. However WR will have to adopt a top down approach to implementing this «*change*» (it isn’t a change at all, since the idea exists since the beginnings of the game) That is to say, elite referees will have to penalise professional players who play the ball when off their feet, at the tackle/ruck/open play and not just get strict about one or two Law references. Then the mini/midi/maxi age group will grow up accepting this interpretation, since it must be true if they have seen it on the telly.
 
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crossref


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It doesn't really matter whether you call it a change or not (i have lost interest in determing the meaning of the Laws back in 2017 :) ) The point is : it's in the Law Book now.

If you like you could also move the player om the ground into the FoP and ask the same question
Also turn the player into a defender and ask if it's a touchdown or a pK

that would give you six variations, you might come up with a mixture, but for me it's Law 13 for each one:

A player on the ground can't play the ball
 
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