time ..... Steve Walsh

[ex-lucy]

near the end of the first half ...
at just under 40 mins gone.. maybe 2 secs ... knock on by Wales ...
Walsh plays advantage ... play continues ... eventually Walsh comes back for scrum .. time now 41 mins +
Wales insist it is half time.
Walsh says "knock on occurred before time was up .. scrum down .. green ball"
Eventually SA work the ball and are rewarded with a pg ...3 pts.

was this right?
i would have blown for half time ...
critical incident

 

[Toby Warren]

Good quesiton. I'd probally give the scrum, why should SA (in this case) suffer as a result of playing advantage.

 

[Phil E]

near the end of the first half ...
at just under 40 mins gone.. maybe 2 secs ... knock on by Wales ...
Walsh plays advantage ... play continues ... eventually Walsh comes back for scrum .. time now 41 mins +
Wales insist it is half time.
Walsh says "knock on occurred before time was up .. scrum down .. green ball"
Eventually SA work the ball and are rewarded with a pg ...3 pts.

was this right?
i would have blown for half time ...
critical incident

By signalling advantage he was effectively saying I am awarding a scrum; unless advantage accrues. So the scrum was awarded before time was up (2 seconds or 2 minutes, makes no odds). It must therefore be completed.

If time expires and the ball is not dead, or an awarded scrum or lineout has not been
completed, the referee allows play to continue until the next time that the ball becomes
dead. The ball becomes dead when the referee would have awarded a scrum, lineout, an
option to the non-infringing team, drop out or after a conversion or successful penalty kick
at goal. If a scrum has to be reset, the scrum has not been completed. If time expires and a
mark, free kick or penalty kick is then awarded, the referee allows play to continue.

 

[ex-lucy]

but at that moment in time 41+ he hasnt awarded the scrum .. he has allowed advantage ... thus i read the law differently ...
by blowing his whistle and saying 'scrum' he is thus awarding the scrum .. so imho ..half time and he was wrong.

 

[Simon Thomas]

this was one of many many things poor Steve Walsh got wrong - not a good return at all.

 

[Mat 04]

Good quesiton. I'd probally give the scrum, why should SA (in this case) suffer as a result of playing advantage.

This is the line I took in his defence.

I don't recall what the playing time was off the top of my head, but if it was say 39 minutes and 55 seconds - would you really deny the team their scrum for what might be 5 seconds of totally worthless advantage? I don't think that is fair.

 

[ddjamo]

I say he was wrong too. half time when advantage is not gained.

 

[Dixie]

Error in my view. It irritated me at the time.

 

[Jenko]

Also the time of the knock on was 40 + 2 secs!

 

[ice999]

time on tv is not automatically the correct time ;-)

 

[Jacko]

For him to be correct would set a dangerous precedent. We would have to reset the time every time a failed advantage occurred!!

 

[Toby Warren]

For him to be correct would set a dangerous precedent. We would have to reset the time every time a failed advantage occurred!!

No we wouldn't. In my view he 'marked' time by saying advantage.

Do we all agree that had this been a Pen. that he had called we would have no problem going back for that?

If so we have established that we can bring things back 'after time'. Can we not use this for all advantage?

TBH it's an interesting discussion but it's a moot point as at the level I am at and will get too noone but me knows the time that's remaining!

 

[crossref]

I think that the decision to play advantage surely must be made with an eye on the clock. If there is only 5s left then the team doesn't want a possible slight wait-and-see advantage.. they want a scrum.

 

[TheBFG]

but surely it's the refs choice to play advantage not the players:chin:

 

[crossref]

the clock keeps running during an advantage, so if you play advatage with 5s remianing, advantage is over after 5 secs.

so it needs to be a very clear and immediate advantage - or else give the scrum.

 

[Bryan]

By signalling advantage he was effectively saying I am awarding a scrum; unless advantage accrues. So the scrum was awarded before time was up (2 seconds or 2 minutes, makes no odds). It must therefore be completed.

I disagree. Let's look at the law you quoted:

The ball becomes dead when the referee would have awarded a scrum...to the non-infringing team.

Steve Walsh WOULD HAVE awarded a scrum after he blew the whistle. The ball therefore is dead. Play would NOT continue in this case.

It then goes on to explicitly state:

If time expires and a mark, free kick or penalty kick is then awarded, the referee allows play to continue

The only way we're restarting is if the above 3 occur.

They made it complicated with the recent rulings from time-expiring after a conversion but before kick-off etc, but I'm trying to keep it simple.

 

[Phil E]

I disagree. Let's look at the law you quoted:

Yes you're right. I am crossing the floor.

 

[OB..]

Another classic ambiguity. The law does not define the point at which a scrum is awarded, and we are yet again scrabbling around among the words to find THE answer.

One benefit of saying that calling advantage is technically (for time purposes) the award of a scrum at the time of the offence, is that the referee does not have to factor game time into a decision to call advantage.

At our levels it does not matter much because only the referee knows exactly what his watch says.

 

[sgoat]

In my view he 'marked' time by saying advantage.

So why only do this at the end of a half. I hate to agree with him, but as Jacko says, if this was the case then you would have to do this every time you played an advantage that you later came back for the infringement.

Do we all agree that had this been a Pen. that he had called we would have no problem going back for that?

If so we have established that we can bring things back 'after time'. Can we not use this for all advantage?

No, because the Law specifically says that you play a PK, FK or Mark (as Bryan quoted in Law 5). It does not say that you can play a scrum.

 

[The umpire]

The knock-on and his arm out for Adv was before the 40 mins were up on the TV clock. So, SA have a scrum unless it's to their advantage to play on. No adv acccrued so you go back to the scrum. What advantage would SA have got by blowing for half-time? None, so back to the scrum. Had it been Wales getting the scrum then half time may well have been advantage enough (they'd only have kicked it out anyway) so blow for half time. Simples!