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Never has so much been said and written about something so small but so wrong in the history of footy.
The Eels lost to the Dogs. The disallowed try that may have seen them win that match was a correct ruling – no question about it.
While the referees were not error-free in their performances, they were right about this incident.
The ball boy should not have thrown the ball to the Parramatta winger. They are instructed not to and it is part of their responsibilities to put the ball on the sideline. They all know that.
So do all the clubs, coaches and players – wingers included.
This problem could have been averted in four ways, either:
1. The ball boy ignoring the winger and doing as he knew he should – put the ball on the ground for the winger to pick it up;
2. The winger not asking the ball boy to pass it to him, but telling him to put the ball down on the sideline for him to pick up;
3. The touch judge immediately telling the referee that the proper procedure had not been followed;
4. The referee seeing all of that himself – as well as seeing that Chris Sandow had not tapped the ball with his foot, but his knee.
The aftermath could have been altogether different, instead of our sport being made to look amateurish.
In other aspects of footy there are also protocols to be followed. From free kicks after penalties have been kicked into touch, the ball boys must put the ball on the touch line – sounds familiar! It must be touched with the foot to re-start play.
From 20-metre kick re-starts, players cannot relay pass the ball for a quick tap. The attacking team can tap it or kick it long.
From a penalty, a quick tap can be taken on the mark by touching the ball with the foot. However a quick tap can be taken in some circumstances only – not from certain penalty types and never inside the opponents 10-metre area.
From goal line drop outs, teams must kick within a time period and from on or behind the goal line.
These are all rules of the game.
If Parramatta – and others who make accusatory remarks on and off the field – had taken more time to practice these 40/20 situations throughout their many training sessions, my guess is we could have saved a fair bit of embarrassment for everyone. And the Eels may now have another two points in the bag.
As a result we now have the craziest comments about a simple rule not being followed.
There are accusations of the incident being “a total mess”. Was it? No, it was a simple rule messed up because players didn’t know what the rule was or chose to break it.
There are accusations that the officials didn’t know what the rule was. Was this true? No, but they have momentarily missed the opportunity to stop it before it happened.
Finally, there were accusations that the committee who devised the rule had it wrong. This was followed by random commentary that the previous rule to re-start by scrum was ‘ok’ and shouldn’t have been amended.
How about this? Well no, because some of those same people are those that were, and still are in some cases, saying that defending players are taking too long to pack scrums.
In response to those wails of complaint from previous seasons, the rules committee wanted to reward and further incentivise kicking from inside the 40 metres.
By eliminating the extended delay in a re-start by scrum, to instead have the opportunity for a quicker tap on the scrum line after collecting the ball from the touchline was reward for skilful play!
For anyone wanting to lay the blame for this at the hands of a ball boy I suggest you take a good, hard look at yourself. I say the same to those blaming officials or rule makers.
However Parramatta would be well within their rights to be asking for explanations on the opening group of back-to-back penalties awarded against them. I called them out on the night. With the benefit of replays I am with Brad Arthur 100 per cent in his post-match comments.
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