Look at he footage, the English players had stopped running, nobody was lining up for the clean out. The USA player’s posture including Quill’s had changed,
Any reasonable person knew it was over, whistle or not.
Your scenario was not worth responding to because it would never happen, not on any field that I have played on or watched. The Law doesn’t even support it.
Law 7: Advantage
d. Must be clear and real. A mere opportunity to gain an advantage is not sufficient.
https://laws.worldrugby.org/?law=7&language=EN

Great point about trial laws and the the environment that they need to be tested in.
But……
Consider that the rugby paddock is a workplace (and it is) and you have an emerging problem with head injuries.
In a workplace environment there is an onus to act immediately to prevent future incidents.
Impact on the game is secondary, to be refined later.

I say this wearing my hardhat.

Replace the Hardhat with a Scrum Cap and I’ll give you a different answer,…… maybe.

Why are head injuries more important?
Is it the risk of death or paraplegia?
or is it CTE from repeated incidents?

If it is primarily CTE, I pull out my risk assessment matrix, and compare it to the frequency and severity of injuries caused by Illegal/b@rely legal ruck clean outs and High ball contacts and ask the question:
Are we looking in all the right places?

If we are going to keep this game watchable, I think the ball carrier needs to be a stakeholder in their own safety.
Duck under a tackle, then you could get penalized for endangering yourself.
Dive for the Line head first, with A Prop Driving you, a head impact is guaranteed.

A balance needs to be made that gives a defender a reasonable chance of stopping you, including prevention of an offload.

I think Nigel Was Right with his call on the Farrel hit, but there was only an inch in it.
Itoge made a similar tackle where the player didn’t duck – Play on.

I get the feeling that some of the teams are being coached to take a dive to get advantage.

It is a tricky conversation to have.

Finding a balance between keeping it exciting and being inclusive to help other nations develop.

I had the similar thoughts as you but think the solution will be a variation of yours.

Firstly, I think it the solution is bigger than the world cup.

In my view, At the moment, there are 6ish tier one nations and 6ish contenders for the bottom 2 spots: Japan, Italy, Argentina, Fiji, Scotland.
The world cup looks like it needs 16 teams (4 pools of 4), like it used to be. To make the games watchable and open the door for some upsets.

Professional sports have been running relegation strategies for years with the bottom 1 or 2 dropping back to Div 2 with the top 1 or 2 Div 2 Coming up.
To me the solution needs to have this sort of feel to it. The World rankings are as good a place to start as any.

There is a catch and a compromise needed to achieve balance.
1. Economics – 2 Tier 1 teams playing each other are going to generate more interest and income than a 1-2 or 2-2 game.
2. Development – Tier 2 Teams aren’t going to improve as quickly if they don’t compete against the best.

Here is my brain storm.
Top 2 teams don’t have to play any tier 2 internationals.
Next 2 Teams must play at least 1 Tier 2 international
Next 4 Teams must play at least 2 Tier 2 internationals

This could be handled by modifications to the 2 series.

6 nations – Needs to be opened up with the 6th spot going to the next best ranked team. Sorry Italy, you will need to compete with Georgia (and others) to get in.
RC needs to add 2 more. Japan + Fiji are obvious choices, with Uruguay, Namibia, USA?, Tonga, Samoa competing to displace them from the 6th spot.
The Spring Tours of the tier 1 nations play each of the teams in the opposite hemisphere.
Throw in an extra non top 6 nation and a BaaBaa’s on each tour to make it friendly, maybe..

If the world cup is just about Revenue- Make it like the Olympics, where everyone gets a go.
6 Pools of 4, Run qualifying finals.
The boring games will be done by the end of Week 2.

DP,
I am not sure where you are going with this,
Are you suggesting that scripture being misunderstood, or perhaps misquoted, misinterpreted or misrepresented?

If you dig down to the last translation that I am able to read, one of the sentences forbids a specific act, with no mention of a relationship. The other deals with marriage.

Did either of the players in this event look like they were fully engaged?
No…..
The whistle was imminent, The ball was dead everyone knew it.

Dual 7’s
Foley
Beale
No Banks
Pig
Lipstick.

And before anyone hits the “other teams are playing dual 7’s” straw man pinata, ask yourself:
Do the straw man 7’s hold their own as an enforcer or ball runner at 6 or 8.

DP,

Interesting comment
“nothing more than quote a piece from scripture.”

Your comment infers that the scripture isn’t problematic.

I, on the other hand, contend that the scripture is the root cause of the problem.
The same messaging from a different book was a green light for genocide.
Why does a cross on the cover of the book it came from make it OK?

Barry,
I am not saying that it has never happened, but in professional rugby, I have never, ever seen it reffed that way.
Most of the time players stop making an effort because the whistle is inevitable.
Dive/regain your own knock on, play is over.

Thanks to all for the abuse/ridicule, this was intended as a thought experiment on the interpretation of the rules….

If you recover your own knock on, the ball is officially dead, there is no scope for play on. I have never seen it reffed any other way.
I still contend that play was over.

So, lets say play had stopped (in a traditional fashion) and Farrel came running in an bashed into an opposition player. Penalty/sanction Yes or no?

The only variable is time elapsed since the ball went dead.
My postulation is that it shouldn’t matter, With the defending player “off the clock” Farrel was at least partialy if not fully responsible for the collision.

Papi,
Folau’s views aren’t shared universaly across Christianity nor pacific islanders.
In fact his church/cult, much like Orthodox Judaism and Extremist Islam are in the minority.
Unfortunately the minority is a vocal and violent making it seem like it is the norm.

It is click bait, but unfortunately, with the current squad, the best answer.

If Tom Banks was over there, instead of playing for the Vikings, it would be a different conversation.

Farrell also had the opportunity to stop running too.
Player safety is a group effort.

Knock on advantage is over the moment the knock-on-er picks up the ball.
The Advantage rule is for when the ball is loose.
But yes, good to see you have my point.

This phrase is rarely used in employment contracts nor Australian law.
Ask anyone at the business end of a slander law suit if it applies.

That said, it is important to distinguish between the severity of being hit with a rock and someone saying something bad. They are worlds apart but one does not justify the other.

Not our problem…. anymore. 😊

Matt,

Your article resonates with most of the windmills that I tilted at as far back as when he “came out” against gay marriage.

There are many straw men arguments to avoid and traps to fall into, but at the end of the day it boils down to:

“My Bronze age Self Help Book tells me that it it is OK to Discriminate, and since my right to believe in said book is protected, I have the right to discriminate”

The law is spotty on this matter. In some cases there are specific clauses that say you can be religious, provided that you don’t discriminate.
On the other hand, there are clauses that say that a catholic school can refuse to employ teachers that aren’t catholic and a black person can be denied a job at the clan office based on their race.

I believe that the reason this issue is so explosive is that the legitimacy of the doctrine is being brought into question.
If the Law says (confirms) that parts of it are wrong it may erode the rest of it, and there are a lot of people heavily invested in the premise that will not happy about it.

Will,

Here is some food for thought:
The ball was dead after Farrel knocked it on.
If play wasn’t on, do you have to wrap your arms when someone runs at you?

Pandora’s Box = Open.
I watched the Game through Hodges eyes last night and recon that they would have been playing 7-a-side by the end of it if they had been applying the same standards.

The red card was an interesting one.
Farrell had knocked on, the ball was effectively dead but he still chose to run (charge) at the opposition.
Is this a no arms tackle worthy of a suspension or self defense with Farrell being the aggressor, put in his place……

Where is Tom Banks?
A guy with pace, vision and can defend a backline.

Oh, yeh, that’s right, I watched him play for the Vikings at UWA park in Perth last week.

Too many Cheika favorites, not enough guys selected on form.

Great insight into the difficulties of being a ref. It is an underappreciated job.

The offside line is an interesting concept, GPS probably isn’t accurate enough and there is a difference between the location of the tracker and the “Last feet”
It gets even more messy when you factor in “when the ball is out” what constitutes “jumping early”.

For me it is an exercise in image recognition, the Irish might need to change the colour of their strip, or the grass will need to be painted pink.

I climb atop my horse and continue to rail against “Playing the margins” or cheating as I like to call it.
Too many players are actively breaking the rules and being rewarded for it.

I think it is player attitudes that need to change, not the tech.

I have zero time for Chieka and he his media skills are woeful.
That aside, if you run hard and low with the ball leading with your head and shoulder, there is some expectation that you are going to run into something.
You can’t use your head as a battering ram and then complain that you have a headache.

Hoops did trip over.

I thought Barrett’s was a timing issue.
I can’t ague the outcome given the laws but it didn’t seem malicious nor clumsy.
That said the trend of players going into rucks shoulder first hitting a prone player, wrapping arms after the fact is a pretty cheap shot.

Timing is everything.
If an attacking player changes direction, slips, ducks or leads with their head, they put yourself in the hands of probability and statistics.
A player in the act of correcting at short notice is less likely to get it right.
At some point, the attacking player needs to have some responsibility for their own safety.
Leading with the head below nipple height should be outlawed the same as tackling above it.

I didn’t get to read the comment before it was deleted, but I probably agreed with it.
Poey is a 7 and Spiro has evaluated him as a 6. A fair comment about the problem, but not the cause.
This falls on Chieka, and his decision to play Hoops at 7.
I didn’t see Hoops have any difficulties at the rucks. But then again, you can’t lose if you don’t play.
I didn’t see much of him there at all, and that is a problem.
When the Fijians are turning over ruck possession left and right and Nick White and CLLF are the front line ruck defenders, their is either a system or staffing problem, or both.

My view is that we need a proper 6, a proper 8 and the best 7 that we have available.
Hoops doesn’t even make my game day 23 as the reserve back rower needs to be a a utility: an enforcer, a genuine lineout target and preferably an injury reserve for lock.

You don’t think that the orbit is determined by the size of the electron or that the size of the electron is dictated by the orbit?