[Law] Well intended advice v correct answer

Christy


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Hi all .
And a question to phil E .

Many times on this rugby forum .
A poster will post A question , and members some time offer good advice / wrong advice ( even if not intended to be wrong ) .. some times spot on advice & some times way off the wall advice .

I understand the concept of a forum .
And to be honest i have beneffited from posting questions & reading others views ..
And on occasions i have decided not to take some advice from here , to my matches.
And sometimes , i have taken advice from here to my matches

But on occasions , there will be a divide amongst posters .
With what a law does & does not mean .

I also understand that laws are down to interpertation & there is some wiggle room .

So what i was wondering is .
Wouldn't it be nice , if we got a proper & correct answer to posts .
Where a common ground cant be acheived .
To allow us all , at least know what the correct answer is ( even if we / some choose to ignore same )
 

crossref


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Christy, only World Rugby can give a categorically correct answerbabout what the Laws mean
.
And even then you may / may not want to obey that answer in the grass roots game.

But yes if you have in mind that one person , or one group pf people gave an "official rugbyref.com answer" that would be quite fun. Not sure who would get that role though , would we have am election?

Do you have particular unresolved question in mind ?
 
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Christy


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I cross .
I probably have many questions that i may or may not of posted here . With unresolved answers
And i would or should go back to those threads to continue those posts .

But there lies my question .
Whos post , do i take on board as the correct answer .

We can have advice from members & help advise each other on a variety of things , non law related .
As fitness , what boots to wear , best way to deal with gobby 10s ,,best way to deal witn gobby coaches .
Etc , et.c

But on occasions , we all post a question of something that happened in a match we were either refereeing our selves , or a match we watched .
And we share our experiences of what we did , or what we saw another ref do .
And we ask for advice of wether what we did or saw was correct .

And sometimes we get mixed messages as advice .

In relation to who that person is , i dont know .
I addressed to phil E , as i think this is his forum
( no offence made , if i miss understood same )
 

SimonSmith


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Broadly two issues:
There's usually only disagreement about what the law means when it is badly written or ambiguous. The only people who can resolve that for you are your local Society or WR.

The second is application of law, for which there may not be a single right answer. USA R GMG may well be different to yoru Society's, for example.

It would be great if we could uniformity, but what is more important is that you are consistent with your Society's interpretation
 

mcroker

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This was why I suggested we used a forum like stack-exchange for QA - where the correct answer can be up-voted.
I don't think the debate which we indulge in actually helps OP in many cases.
 

L'irlandais

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Cristy, you can be forgiven for thinking a moderator owns the forum; some of them seem to think they do.
Rugby refs belongs to Robbie Burns
 

Dickie E


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Christy, you should do what most sensible people do. Take the advice of Dickie E, and move on :pepper:
 

Zebra1922


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`I wouldn't like a nominated, 'forum' view. It would presuppose that view trumps all others. The beauty of this forum (well not always but mostly) is the debate of areas of contention/interpretation. It is clear when there is a well crafted, well thought through answer and where there is not, and you can make your judgement based on this and how it fits in with your paradigm of refereeing. We all know rugby is a game if interpretations, materiality, clarity etc. If we ever get consensus on everything it's not the game it currently is and probably not something I'd want to referee.
 

DocY


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So what i was wondering is .
Wouldn't it be nice , if we got a proper & correct answer to posts .
Where a common ground cant be acheived .
To allow us all , at least know what the correct answer is ( even if we / some choose to ignore same )

This is what your society's for. I wouldn't choose to ignore their correct answer, though.
 

Phil E


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Hi all .
And a question to phil E .

It seems everyone else has answered this for me?

This forum is owned and managed by Robbie Burns.
However Robbie is away travelling around the world with work quite a lot and has therefore delegated the day to day management to a number of Moderators that he trusts to maintain the ethos of the forum as he saw it. Most of the Mods have been members for a number of years, most more than me.

What I tend to see (just my opinion) is that most questions get answered correctly very quickly in the thread. The thread will then either go off on a tangent, or deteriorate into a number of "Angels dancing on pinheads" observations or supplementary questions. Like advice from assessors, you have to pick out what to take away with you, and what to ignore. There may be some people on this forum who's judgement you trust more than others.

While there are many experienced match officials from all areas of the game on this forum, as has already been pointed out, the definitive answer has to come from your Society. That's because they may want you to do things in a certain way, or follow a common ground on decision making. If you want to progress in your Society you would be well advised to follow their lead.

I don't think anyone on here would want to announce what is the definitive answer to a question (apart from the occasional black and white law question).

forum
/ˈfɔːrəm/ noun

a meeting or medium where ideas and views on a particular issue can be exchanged.
"we hope these pages act as a forum for debate"
synonyms: meeting, assembly, gathering, conference, seminar, convention, colloquy, convocation, congress, rally, council, symposium, conclave, congregation, synod, diet; More
 

OB..


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Like advice from assessors, you have to pick out what to take away with you, and what to ignore.
As an assessor (or Match Observer, or whatever the latest title is) I endorse this approach.
While there are many experienced match officials from all areas of the game on this forum, as has already been pointed out, the definitive answer has to come from your Society.
Agreed, though in my experience asking them can often produce the same sort of results as you get on this site.
 

Zebra1922


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As an assessor (or Match Observer, or whatever the latest title is) I endorse this approach.
.
“Coach” - at my lever you’re a coach and here “to support me”
 

crossref


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.
Agreed, though in my experience asking them can often produce the same sort of results as you get on this site.

That also my experience
The only way to get a single answer is to ask precisely one person

The only way to get the answer you want is to carefully phrase the question :biggrin:
 
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didds

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As an assessor (or Match Observer, or whatever the latest title is) I endorse this approach.
Agreed, though in my experience asking them can often produce the same sort of results as you get on this site.

indeed.

about a decade ao I was aksed to toddle along to our local society meeting to discuss an aspect of law/refereeing of my choice.

I chose lineouts and in particular the application of advantage - or not - at such scenarios as early lift bvt defenders, lifing in the channel (some of these have been dealt with bty law in the subsequent period of course).

The expereince was a really good one and the meeting reached various consensus regarding what advanatge did or didn;t mean and whether a lift by the non thrower in the channel was l;egal and allowed etc.

One pretty prominent member of the society and we;l; regarded however said quite openly that for one of the scenarios (I cant recall which one now) we discussed even though the society as a group had decided the answer was <X>, he refused to referee it that way and so would instead do <Y>.

Which I thought was interesting...

didds
 

DocY


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One petty, prominent member of the society

Fixed that for you ;)

I bet the guy reffing the week after loved having half the players saying "but sir, the ref last week said..."
 

crossref


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Luckily the scenarios we disagree on are normally unusual.. and players and assessors disagree on them as well. So it doesnt matter

Apart from one, whre it really does matter ... When is it out, Sir?
 

OB..


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Apart from one, whre it really does matter ... When is it out, Sir?
I think our referees are now agreed:
either (a) the ball is clear (using rubber band test) or (b) it has been legally picked up.

It used to be a standard question asked at the pre-match brief, but I think it died out last season. Certainly the referees I saw all gave the same answer.
 

OB..


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“Coach” - at my lever you’re a coach and here “to support me”
Not inEngland. A coach looks after a small number of referees. Not all referees have a coach.
An assessor sees a different referee every week. Each referee should get seen a few times per season.
 
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