Yesterday's training session was a panel-led discussion on what referees, players, coaches and assessors expect of each other.
One of the thinbgs that got mentioned several times was consistency, though we found it useful to distinguish "consistency" (by a referee during a game) and "uniformity" (all refeees across all games).
To give the discussion a specific focus, I said that at almost every PMB someone asks "When is the ball out of a ruck?". I hear almost as many answers as there are refeees, and it seemed to me a good exemple of where society training could produce uniformity, at least in our area.
I know this subject has come up before, but I thought it would be useful to collect a wide rnage of approaches from the assembled group of experts.
[LAWS]16.6 A ruck ends successfully when the ball leaves the ruck, or when the ball is on or over the goal line.[/LAWS]
For me that means the ball has to be clear of the players in the ruck. However there is a rider: by convention the scrum half is allowed to use his hands to clear the ball from the ruck, and he may have difficulty pulling it out from under a player. I would allow him to do that provided he lifts the ball clear of the ruck as soon as he can. If he delays with his hands on the ball when he could lift it out, he is technically handling in the ruck.
I recommend saying the first bit, but making the scrum half aware of the rider if he starts to take liberties.
Over to you.
One of the thinbgs that got mentioned several times was consistency, though we found it useful to distinguish "consistency" (by a referee during a game) and "uniformity" (all refeees across all games).
To give the discussion a specific focus, I said that at almost every PMB someone asks "When is the ball out of a ruck?". I hear almost as many answers as there are refeees, and it seemed to me a good exemple of where society training could produce uniformity, at least in our area.
I know this subject has come up before, but I thought it would be useful to collect a wide rnage of approaches from the assembled group of experts.
[LAWS]16.6 A ruck ends successfully when the ball leaves the ruck, or when the ball is on or over the goal line.[/LAWS]
For me that means the ball has to be clear of the players in the ruck. However there is a rider: by convention the scrum half is allowed to use his hands to clear the ball from the ruck, and he may have difficulty pulling it out from under a player. I would allow him to do that provided he lifts the ball clear of the ruck as soon as he can. If he delays with his hands on the ball when he could lift it out, he is technically handling in the ruck.
I recommend saying the first bit, but making the scrum half aware of the rider if he starts to take liberties.
Over to you.