Laws in all areas of life are challenged by advances in technology. Rugby league is no exception.
The use of video replays with the ability to zoom in and look in detail, frame-by-frame, has rugby league referees and NRL rule makers in a pickle.
The decision to award a try to Greg Inglis in last week’s State of Origin clash highlights the refereeing mess that the NRL has allowed to evolve.
Even Greg Inglis himself said later that he thought he had messed up and not scored the try. His sentiments were echoed by thousands of league supporters including former players, commentators and experts on the game.
In order to trace the origins of the problem we need to wind back the clock – some time after the introduction of the video referee. A first grade rugby league match is in progress. A player steams on to a pass and into a hole in the defensive line about eight metres out from the try line, but he loses the ball.
The player and his teammates all groan as the try is bombed and the defenders relax. The offending player grabs the ball and places the ball over the try line. The players all ready themselves for the scrum when suddenly the referee blows his whistle and speaks into his microphone back to the video referee.
He says ‘I just want check whether the ball actually touched his hands’.
Sure enough, upon close inspection it was revealed that the player with his hands stretched forward to receive the ball had missed the ball completely and the ball rebounds forward off his torso. The referee then awards a try and there are smiles all round for the attacking team. Luckily for them the player’s attempt to execute catching the ball was so poor that it went straight through and came off his body without a touch of the ball from his hands.
According to the rules, it was a try.
Some time around the year 2000, rules were introduced to stop defenders from stealing or ‘stripping’ the football from a player in possession unless there is only one player making the tackle. In principle, this rule was welcomed as the game was suffering from stoppages due to disputes as to who possessed the ball in the tackle. To help simplify things, they banned any contest for the ball once the ball carrier was outnumbered by tacklers.
Now, over 10 years later and it would be fair to say that this rule causes more debate than any other rule in the game. Why?
The problem is that rule makers and referees don’t seem to communicate very well. The two should be working together so that referees don’t need to apply their own interpretation of a rule.
In the 2010 NRL grand final, Roosters player Joseph Leilua, holding the ball in his outstretched arms loses it forward at the tryline. The ball was bumped out by a Dragons player before Braith Anasta forces it over the tryline. Viewed live and later on replay at normal speed, few with the exception of the most parochial Roosters supporters would have awarded a try.
After viewing frame by frame replays, a try was awarded. Much like the Inglis try at Etihad stadium, the game had to wait and wait and wait for the replays from all angles and then again in slow motion to determine the outcome.
In the decade since the ‘stripping’ rule was introduced, the rule has been modified just once to allow tacklers to take the ball if the player was attempting to place the ball for a try. Ironically I would argue that there are more incidents of the ball coming loose in the tackle now than there was when it was legal to steal the ball.
What is the definition of a ‘strip’? No one really knows now and that includes the referees. Throughout the decade it has been left up to the referees to use their ‘interpretation’, without any clarification written into the rules. But that’s hardly surprising because the rules still recognise scrums as contested!
You only need to watch a hand full of games now to see that referees can’t easily tell the difference between a strip and a lost ball. An identical scenario in one game gets a penalty and then the next game it gets deemed a lost ball and if it happens at the try line we get to see the video referee’s confused logic played out in slow motion over and over.
It was clear in the wash up of the Inglis try decision that we have the integrity of the game at stake. The match was totally compromised by the refereeing process that took place. Like yachts becalmed mid race, the match never recovered from the huge delay and then the ultimate (poor) decision. This has been happening more and more often in NRL matches, making for poorer entertainment.
In the modern game tacklers target the ball carrier between the navel and the shoulder and only the third player in will target the legs. This means that the man and the football are constantly subjected to collisions. When the stripping rule was first introduced, the purpose was to stop players from taking the ball away from a player during the process of tackling him. If the ball was jolted loose on impact either from the tacklers arm, shoulder or body it was never considered stolen or stripped out.
Back then, issues with stripping out or stealing the ball were dependent on how the ball was held by the man in possession. When carrying the ball a player may hold the ball with one arm to allow him to fend with the other hand. He may swap the ball from arm to arm depending on how individual tacklers approach him. He may carry the ball out in front with both hands which provide him the option to pass long or short either side or kick.
Then, there is the safety position where the ball is held against the chest with hands and forearms enabling the player to bump defenders or hit and spin. The skill of the ball carrier involves a constant selection process in choosing the appropriate way to hold the ball at that moment. Up until now it has always been recognised that possession of the ball was vulnerable when held away from the body or held in one hand and a player would always bring the ball back to a safety position at the moment he was in danger of losing the ball.
If you look at video of the late great Arthur Beetson you will see all the above styles of holding the ball as he ran, bumped, passed or offloaded, but he rarely had the ball stolen and this was when all tacklers were allowed to steal the ball.
So what is the way forward?
The rule makers need to work with the referees and clearly define what is ‘stripping out the ball’. We need guidelines that reduce the amount of 50/50 judgements by referees. The refereeing job is hard enough without having rules drafted with few guidelines and no thought for how the man in the middle can apply the rule.
We need to return to the onus being on the ball carrier. If the ball is lost from the first impact of any of the tacklers or lost when held away from the chest during the tackle it should not be ruled as being stripped out. If a player has his hands stretched out towards the ball then he should be deemed to be playing at the ball. If in reaching forward he isn’t good enough to get a touch on the ball and it rebounds forward it should be a knock-on because his obvious intent was to catch the ball.
The NRL could do with looking at other industries and professions where there exists a successful process for applying rules, standards, guidelines and policing. Safety in Engineering and the releasing of drugs in medicine are two that spring to mind.
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