By ClarkeG, 30 Aug 2013
From the Roar
In a recent Currie Cup game, a player carried the ball forward of his own goal-line and was tackled.
From the tackle the ball was cleared to a teammate who appeared to be positioning himself to clear the ball up field.
However before he could do so he was engulfed by the attacking team and driven back over his own goal-line resulting in a five metre scrum feed to the attacking team.
That the attacking team was able to force the player with the ball back over his own goal-line was not a surprise but how they achieved it was. Several of the attacking team made an obvious decision to not retire behind their team’s side of the tackle.
There was no ruck formed at the tackle thus there was no offside line established so the players from the attacking team were under no obligation to retire.
Commentator Joel Stransky said at the time that this was a problem in the game and one that the law makers need to address.
He suggested that there had to be an offside line at the tackle. I seem to recall that this was trialled at the time of the Experimental Law Variations (ELVs) several years ago.
It became obvious very quickly that having an offside line at the tackle was untenable and it was thrown out very quickly.
What has been surprising is that it has taken so long for teams at the highest level of the game to realise that they can exploit this to their advantage as did the attacking team in the incident I have described.
It was so obvious what they collectively did to pressure the defending team that it had to have been a pre determined ploy.
So then how often in a match is there no ruck formed at a tackle and thus no offside line? Well I don’t have any real statistics but if you watch any televised match you will notice that it’s a high percentage.
What particularly annoys me is that referees will consistently encourage players to get back onside when in fact no offside line has been established.
So what will happen if the action taken by the Currie Cup team, as I have described, becomes prevalent in the game.
Is Joel Stansky correct? Do the law makers need to look at this? I don’t think so. It is up to individual teams/ coaches to deal with it if it does become an issue.
