Quick restart

[Baylion]

At the end of the Lions vs Bulls game on Saturday the Lions quickly restarted the game after a Bulls penalty in the 78th minute. The Bulls captain now says that the Lions did the quick restart with a new ball where they should have used the same ball the penalty was kicked with.

While the "ball in play" must be used for conversions, penalties and quick lineouts I cannot find anything in the laws that say it must be used at restarts or drop outs.

Comments?

 

[crossref]

the relevant Law is this one

[LAWS]2.6 Spare balls
Spare balls may be available during a match, but a team must not gain or attempt to gain an unfair advantage by using them or changing them.[/LAWS]

In a grassroots game where spare ball are not usually used unless the first one is lost or broken, then I think that using a fresh ball to take the opponents by surpise at a restart, would indeed be to take an unfair advantage, and I wouldn't allow it.

But in the professional game restarts are ALWAYS taken with a fresh ball, delivered to the centre by a ball boy, so I don't think that a team can be said to have gained an unfair advantage simply because the ball was changed. Indeed they don't normally have the option to use the same ball, even if they wanted to (as there would be two on the pitch)