The slappy slap yellows

When will players wake up to this? First Moodie, then Willie last night.

Willie's was especially stupid as it was absolutely deliberate and intentional - the Bulls had fast cover coming across, which is why they escaped a penalty try, so the desperate measure might not even have been necessary. And then 90 seconds later, Leinster score anyway, and now the Bulls are a man down to boot, so what have you achieved? Is the risk of "saving" one try (and in most cases a try is not even on the cards) for a certain yellow worth it?

20 Minutes a man down in the first 40 against a side like Leinster, you have to be better than that to have a hope in hell. I get the impression SA players are more prone to doing this than other teams (I might be wrong), which may point to our narrow defences being put under pressure too often by the width and depth in attack from the UK sides.

how many tries did Jean de Villiers score off intercepts ?

scorpion/frog :) ?

These aren't intercepts though, Blobbie, they're deliberate attempts to neutralize an overlap. Just hanging a hand out or charging onto a pass that you have no hope of controlling. Watch Lowe's later on as well. Three against 1 outside, he just charges into the path of the pass and hangs a hand out. Little to no chance of catching and controlling that.

Perhaps I need some education here.

Why is it a yellow or even a penalty in the first place?

You are allowed to spoil the ball almost everywhere else provided it's from a legal position.

Why should backline attacks get preferential treatment?

And then, what about lineouts? Say you are 5m out and want to set up a maul. The opposition lock gets a hand to it and knocks it on. Well, that knock-on has spoiled an attacking move. Why is that not a penalty and potentially a card?

What if there is a cross field kick and the defender has no chance of catching and so just attempts to slap the ball out of the air, and it goes forward? That has spoiled an attacking play...why is that not called an intentional knock on and penalised?

I'm not complaining because it cost the Bulls yesterday. I've always had a bit of an issue with this rule and I might be missing something very obvious because it's never discussed. Everybody seems fine with it.

And now, of course you have the situation where a guy making a tackle had the ball hit his arm and we have to look at slo-mos to ensure it wasn't intentional.

There rule appears predicated on the idea that there is no answer to a team looking to get in among a backline and slap balls down. Really?

I actually don't get it.

You are allowed to spoil the ball almost everywhere else provided it's from a legal position.

Pretty sure you're not. You can't, for example, slap the ball from the scrummie's hands even if you are in a legal position. Or keep your hands on the ball once a ruck has formed even if you are in a legal position. Correct me if I'm misunderstanding.

Probably falls under the umbrella of fair play and is considered cynical. By the same token you can ask why is it illegal to slap the ball from the scrummie's hand. Should it be? I think these laws should be judged under the question "what if everyone starts doing it". To what extent will it disrupt the game.

Point being though, players know it's a penalty and more often than not a card. We can debate the why, just as we can ask why accidental head contact where there is no intention to foul should be carded, but it doesn't change the fact that that is the law and the players know it. It's a high risk, low reward play.

11.3 A player must not intentionally knock the ball forward with hand or arm.

Sanction:Penalty.

11.4 It is not an intentional knock forward if, in the act of trying to catch the ball, the player knocks on provided that there was a reasonable expectation that the player could gain possession.

Fair enough, Paks.

I still think it should just be a knock on though. It's weird to me that the ball is allowed to be intercepted but not knocked on. Like, you can attempt a particular skill but if you fail you are sent off the field.

For me, it should just be a knock on and if you want to avoid it happening to you then you simply have to set deeper.

It's just another thing that has players being sent off and contests being ruined.

But I do agree that it is stupid to be going for those types of things when you know there is a card waiting if you get it wrong. At least make sure you always have two hands out if you're gonna try. And ja, Lord knows what Wille was trying. The man needs to hand up the boots and start being a backline coach already.

It shouldn't be a card...most of it is muscle memory reflex...very difficult to unlearn...totally different from a deliberate knock down, how it used to be adjudicated...and it's only a yellow if there was an overlap/line break...and intercept is the only way to defend these situations...if the ball gets past you, it's probably a try anyway.

I can't remember when it actually became an almost auto yellow. True Draad, I also recall a time when, if you hit it upwards instead of down, you didn't get penalized as it was ruled an intercept attempt then, which is probably fair as you're trying to keep the ball alive. But then you get one like Willie's which was clearly just an attempt to bat the pass away, never mind in which direction. That should absolutely be penalized in my opinion.

Penalty is fine, the auto yellow is stupid IMO.

I do not have problem with a card in t hat case because it as a method used by teams to prevent scoring of tries. Most teams dd it and some specialized in it.

It is the same like brng ing dow a drivin g maul to prevent scorung of a try,

Abuse lt to the yellow card decision in that case and it even resulted in some cases whre abuse was obvious in awarding penalty tries/ The real problem cas was tthe AB;s wh o abused the system routinely during th eir glory years.

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Assume they no longer penalise it and you can now slap the ball up, down or anywhere you like.

What will change?

Would it become a case of backline play being destroyed or badly affected?

I'm actually curious. And the reason I'm asking is because if you are that deep into the oppo line that you can slap the ball down, but they don't pass but run past you...

Yje latte happened way to often in th e Lisnter game and aso i.n th e Barbarians gfame.

Assume they no longer penalise it and you can now slap the ball up, down or anywhere you like.

What will change?

I'd be up for trialling that. Maybe not much changes at all. But it ain't happening.

Just to make a distinction again because the intercept keeps being brought up - you're not intercepting a ball by sticking one hand into the path of the pass. That's not an attempted intercept. Look at Moodie for example - just hanging the hand out. Lowe too, despite his protestations, just stuck a hand out. He was never going to control that for an intercept. There's a difference between running onto a pass and sticking a hand into the path of a pass. As Draad says it may in many cases be muscle reflex and hard to control, I won't dispute that cause I don't have compelling evidence that it's not so.

Ja but by sticking a hand out you can steer the ball to your other hand/body or back to a player & occasionally you'll see someone catch with one & then have a juggling episode while haring downfield.

scorpion/frog

Been a while since I've seen someone catch one of these, Blobbie. But anyway, the point I was trying to make originally is that this is a high risk/low reward play given the current laws and refereeing of it. Maybe it shouldn't be a yellow or even a penalty, but at the moment it is.

irresistible impulse ... imo.most attempters see it as an opportunity to score or gain ground, not to deprive their opponent. Then again without the sanction players will get slap-happy.