rewarding

crossref


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Very common nowadays to hear referees talking about 'rewarding' a team -- by which they mean giving a PK against the other side.


I am beginning to wonder if this turn of phrase is leading us astray.

PK are the result of an infringement.

Whether or not red deserve a 'reward' isn't really relevant : the question is whether blue committed an offence.


whaddyathink?
 

SimonSmith


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It will be a semantic debate that ends up going nowhere, and I struggle to understand how it leads anyone astray.

Let's take a scrum. Blue get a strong nudge on and continue to exert legal pressure that white front row can't tolerate and Dylan Hart....sorry, White hooker stands up to relieve the pressure.

You can say that you are penalizing white; there's an equally valid argument that you are rewarding blue for exerting so much legal pressure that white had to concede the penalty.

What sort of problems do you think using "reward" is causing?
 
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crossref


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well this is one example that got me thiniking ...

Sure, traditionally you'll give the 9 a couple of warnings first so no gotchas, but yet, reward the defence (normally) for stopping the maul, here it would actually be the attacking team who get to keep the ball

Or this from JP
the most positive people get rewarded.

https://youtu.be/dFbsMbTVVu0?t=126

or this
If one team gets the scrum moving straight forward and it then spins I would penalise the other team. (so reward them with a penalty).


are we deciding which team deserves to be rewarded? or are we working out which team has actually offended?

the thing is: I don't think those two approaches would always lead to the same answer
 
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Flish


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Well, the first example is me - and that refers to a stationary maul, not a penalty offence so no infringement, you are literally rewarding the defensive team for their efforts in defence, brought a maul to a stop and / or wrapped up the ball carrier so they can't play. So a reward?

In actual PK scenarios, there are lots of occasions that are technically an offence and subject to a PK (Offside etc), but they are not always given. Also, there can often be two PK worthy offences at once, eg holding on by blue and not rolling by red, and you'll often hear the phrase that you can't 'reward' the red jackler doing positive things (blue holding on) because red tackler hasn't rolled any. So I don't think any real confusion there.

You get a reward for being positive, if your positive play results in the oppo materially infringing then yes, that's your reward. I like the term because it encourages positive play, which is a good thing no?
 

Marc Wakeham


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From me ithe use of "reward" impies the use of the scrum as a penalty winning machine rather than "positive" play . So, teams destabalize and then drive so it is often difficult to stay up etc.

If, in our minds, we look to punish the illegal. We might get to the truth. Often the Nudge and pressure that "blue" were able to exert comes from illagal binding / angles etc that refs miss all to often when they look to reward the dominant pack. The question sometimes needs to be "WHY are Blue dominant?"
 

Camquin

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I do not understand why referees permit scrums to continue if one of the props fails to bind correctly.
It is a penalty offence and the other side is not going to get a better outcome.
 
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