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A forward pass is physics - and so is David Klemmer

30th June, 2015
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The rules for touching referees need to be made consistent. (AAP Image/Mick Tsikas)
Expert
30th June, 2015
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Two aspects of rugby league over the weekend had me thinking about the reactions it draws from the fans. The forward pass, and David Klemmer.

The pass came from the Halliwell Jones Stadium in Warrington and Klemmer’s monster performance came at Belmore Sportsground. Both got league fans fired up in different ways.

In English rugby league’s Challenge Cup on Sunday, Warrington Wolves took on Leigh Centurions in a quarter-final. Early in the second half ‘Wire’ constructed a fabulous back line movement which ended with winger Kevin Penny leaping a defender and planting the ball down one-handed in the corner.

It was a fabulous acrobatic try, which would have been disallowed prior to the corner post being made irrelevant, but in 2015 it makes for a spectacular highlight.

Yet the part that had me thinking was the comments the fans made on the Sydney Morning Herald website about the final pass to Penny before he touched down.

“Great put down of the ball over the try line, but sadly it was off a forward pass,” said ‘Souths Yobbo’.

Really? Are you watching a different video to me? The pass was fine and didn’t even warrant a second look. But it did take me back to all the times I had ruled on passes that were backwards or flat yet the fans were going bonkers about a ‘forward’ pass that was missed.

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There have been howls of protest and calls for the video referee to intervene and overrule the try. We must never get to that stage.

Let me give you one easy point to remember when judging a forward pass, and then we’ll move on to some others that are more nuanced. If the ball is passed backwards, it’s not forward.

Unlike some SMH comments I’m not going to try and explain Newtonian mechanics – I am no physicist – but it doesn’t matter where the ball travels if it has been thrown backwards in the first place.

There are plenty of times the ball will end up in front of where it is thrown in a point-to-point sense. Think of the times you’ve seen the ball passed by the centre to the winger where the ball was thrown on the 10-metre line then caught about eight metres out. The reason the pass is permitted is because the ball carries the momentum of the passer with it (as long as he is running forwards).

Imagine you are riding a pushbike at about 30km/h and you are carrying a Steeden in one hand. You drop the ball over the top of a garbage bin at the precise moment that the ball is above it. Where does the ball land? Will it drop straight down into the bin?

Of course not – it will land in front of it. The ball is still travelling at 30km/h forwards when it is released, so that momentum will carry the ball in front of the target.

The same applies in rugby league, albeit with a lot of variables involved. Speed, angles, spin of the ball, passing motion, contact on the passer – all these need to be considered. It’s not easy and it takes experience.

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When I was judging a pass from the touchline I would consider all of these factors instantly. It’s not because I’m clever or special or smarter than anyone else – it’s simply that I did it for 20 years across all levels of football. I learned what to look for before the pass was thrown and what to look for as it was thrown. As I mentioned it takes experience and for that there is no substitute.

For example, if a player is stationary and the ball ends up in front of where he passed it – forward. Anyone is going to get that right.

However, if the player is running forwards the ball is going to carry that forward momentum. I always used to look at the direction they are running as well – straighter runs compared to angled runs are going to give different results on a pass.

Running from centre field towards the corner post may produce a pass that finishes a metre in front of the passer that is still thrown backwards. Running from centre field straight at the goal posts may produce the same pass, but this time finishing two or three metres in front. It’s still good.

In the Kevin Penny try his inside man is running a fairly straight line at good speed when the pass is delivered. From the point it is thrown to the point it is caught there is a difference of about a metre. Yet it was thrown backwards so it’s play on. Try!

Back in Sydney and Monday night saw Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs host Melbourne Storm at Belmore Sportsground on a wonderful occasion to mark 80 years of rugby league for the NRL powerhouse.

Matching that power was a front rower having a breakout season with the blue and whites: David Klemmer. With a game-leading 209 metres up the middle and a rampaging performance all round Klemmer brought the Belmore faithful to their feet as the physics principles of inertia and momentum were personified in one man. It capped off a terrific month with headlines in State of Origin and a decider just around the corner.

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It wasn’t always praise that was sent big Dave’s way. Many Roarers will recall Klemmer’s selection in the Australian team for last year’s Four Nations tournament. The vitriol was palpable.

‘He’s not even a starting player for his club!’ the fans shouted. ‘He hasn’t earned his place!’

I knew he had earned his place. I’d seen him up close all season in 2014. And I had the privilege of coaching his niece and nephew in my Under-6s team at our local footy club, Fairfield Pats in Parramatta District.

And I knew how hard the comments on social media hit his father when he read what the keyboard warriors were saying on Facebook and Twitter.

“Don’t even bother reading them,” was my only advice to David’s sisters. “Those people aren’t the selectors so they don’t count. The people who do count know he can get the job done.”

David Klemmer was selected for that team because so many more recognised representative players were unavailable. Surgery, burn-out, it’s-not-Origin-so-couldn’t-be-stuffed – whatever the reason it’s all history for those players now. Klemmer did what happens in rugby league as often as it happens in life, he was prepared for the opportunity when it was offered and he grabbed it.

That Four Nations campaign cemented Klemmer as a representative player through what he did on the park. You can forget about what was said about him in October, by November he was a star.

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The problem I see in 2015 is that Klemmer the player is in danger of being overshadowed by Klemmer the caricature. There have been many column inches written about his confrontation with Corey Parker in Origin 2, where out of four words spoken only ‘off’ and ‘you’ are fit for print. About a possible boxing match with an ageing Gorden Tallis.

On Monday Night With Matty Johns, Tallis had plenty of praise for Klemmer as a footballer: “You saw it tonight. When he concentrated on footy, look he came off the back fence, his actions are doing the talking.”

So imagine my distaste when I sat at the Novotel’s bar in Melbourne on Good Friday, having demanded that the NRL be put on the big screen so that I could watch the Bulldogs versus the Rabbitohs, and a classic match unraveled through the actions of James Graham and David Klemmer.

Why does Corey Parker think he will get any respect when the same player can shout expletives in the face of referee Gerry Sutton?

Bulldogs CEO Raelene Castle has said publicly that the players have sat through the vision of that Good Friday confrontation and we won’t see it again. I hope not – because when I think of a footballer I want to see in my mind images of a prop forward charging into the defence to get a job done for his team.

I want every little kid I coach to see that as well, whether they’ve got an Uncle Dave or not.

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