Your decision ?

[SimonSmith]

Unlike a high tackle, the Blue player was not affecting the Red player. Blue had options to make the ball dead and picked a poor one. If you want to say it wasn't probable for Blue to catch the ball and ground it, how can you say it would have been probable for Red to do it?

That logic flaw seems flawed.

The argument is not that Blue probably couldn't, simply that Blue elected not to.

Remove that Blue player from the equation.

Now ask if Red would probably have scored. If yes, PT, if not PK.

We don't ask what the offending player coulda/woulda/shoulda, we look at what they actually did.

 

[Dixie]

Unlike a high tackle, the Blue player was not affecting the Red player. Blue had options to make the ball dead and picked a poor one. If you want to say it wasn't probable for Blue to catch the ball and ground it, how can you say it would have been probable for Red to do it?

As SimonSmith says, you seem to be offering the Blue cheat a second bite at his cherry. In assessing PT scenarios, we don't do this. The Blue player had a choice of acting legally or illegally. He chose the latter (note: not a poor choice as you suggested; an illegal one. A poor choice might have been to try to catch it legally but one-handed). That being the case, we apply the "beam him up Scotty" approach. If, just before he committed his illegal act, he'd been beamed up to the Enterprise leaving a Blue-shaped hole where the player used to be, would Red 12 have scored? He was a metre away from the ball and no other Blue player could have stopped him. The DBL was probably the only limiting factor - we don't need to ask whether an elite pro player might have dropped the ball in trying to catch and ground it. At the very least a reference to the TMO to determine the DBL issue.

 

[TheBFG]

PT and at that level :noyc: