Really? I don't see the problem myself. If you're looking at the hands of the player making the pass it's pretty easy to determine if the ball was launched forward in relation to him or not.

The alternative that you suggest would result in a huge number of forward passes being awarded and the slowing down of the game as players attempted to ensure that they passed the ball backwards faster than they were running forwards.

It would also, as pointed out previously, result in the ridiculous situation where it would be possible to pass the ball over your had and still get pinged for a forward pass.

The rule is fine as it stands.

How many pages away are we from people rolling up socks and passing them through doorways while running along the upstairs landing?

That thought had crossed my mind as well.

Theres no way of getting around the momentum rule though at times some passes do seem to travel at a more forward rate than the persons running speed on release of the ball.

I would rather we got rid of allowing a flat pass at the play the ball. The number of these that IMO seem to go forward without being given is much greater than those during open play.

No you can't, not when players can feint when passing. Looking at the position of the player's hands does not determine what direction the pass will be in, it may be an indicator, but that's it.




That it would be more difficult to throw a genuinely flat pass whilst running (i.e. not a "flat" pass that is actually forward relative to the ground) I have no doubt, but then lots of things in RL are difficult, kicking goals from the touchline is difficult but we don't fudge whether they get two points because the ball appears to go in the general direction of the posts.



I don't understand what point you're trying to make here? We've had various different interpretations; from phoney arguments about the laws of physics and players momentum, to phoney arguments that the feint of a passer's hands indicating the actual direction of the pass, and the only semi-sensible argument argument is that it's more difficult to throw genuine flat passes (as opposed to backwards passes) when players are running.



I translate that as meaning it allows for passes that are forward relative to the ground because it's deemed more convenient than having to enforce a stricter interpretation of passing.

The direction of the pass is the direction the ball travels, everything else is merely the direction the player indicates the pass may travel in, including feints, which are designed to fool defenders (and for which we laud players).

Ditching phoney arguments about physics, in all other aspects of the game direction is judged primarily relative to the ground (and then relative to the movement of players), yet somehow passing isn't, because it makes it tricky to throw flat passes that are really flat whilst running.

They can feint as they're actually releasing the ball? Impressive.

Oh, wait - you've just made that up, haven't you?


You're not getting this at all, are you? In order for the ball to travel backwards in relation to the ground, it has to achieve a net negative velocity relative to the player. This would be reasonably difficult at full pace if throwing directly backwards, but as soon as you factor in a horizontal element it becomes ridiculously hard when moving at anything faster than a gentle jog. You would completely change the character of the game - and for no good reason.


We've actually had a single interpretation that you are spectacularly failing to understand. I'm beginning to think that you're being deliberately obtuse for the sake of trolling.


It doesn't need translating. The rule is fine because it catches genuine forward passes while allowing fast play and recognising simple physics. It's not even in conflict with other rules as you spuriously claim, since all the other rules concerning the direction of travel of the ball make reference to how the ball is [ipropelled[/i - just as the passing rule does.

Nope. The direction of the pass is the direction in which the ball is propelled by the player making the pass.


You don't actually understand physics, do you?

And all directions are actually judged relative to the two try lines. Including passing.

You are, what's his face, Keith Senior's brother and I claim my five pounds.

Can we look forward to your tails of running down a corridor at speed chucking your rolled up overall through a doorway to prove that the momentum of the player passing a ball backwards shouldn't be taken into account?

oh and …



… we're not talking about standing players, but running ones

This is just rubbish, the direction of a pass cannot be determined by looking at the hands of the player, even when the ball is in the process of being released, the direction of the pass is the direction in which it actually does travel, not the direction in which it looks like it might possibly travel if we take a guess at where it's going to go. It's just so incredibly silly to try and argue that because there is a possible indication in the positioning of the player as to the direction the pass might travel in that represents coclusive evidence about how the pass actually is going to travel in, especially when we know that such positioning does not provide conclusive evidence of the direction the pass actually travelled.

All other rules judge direction relative to the ground, if a player kicks a ball up in the air and it goes backwards and lands behind him we don't say "ooh that really went forward because that's the direction the player's boot was facing when he kicked it".

So we go back to the crux of it, it's simpler to fudge passing relative to the ground, than it is to deal with the problems of making genuinely flat passes whilst travelling at speed.

Some fairly simple (and therefore not 100% accurate) maths........
A man running at 10 yds per second (so obviously a quick back) wanting to pass to a man 5 yds outside him judges the ball needs to be thrown 1.5 yds backwards at 10 yds per second to be caught. (A reasonable decision I think all would agree?).
The ball is in the air for approx 5.22 seconds to travel the 5.22 yds to his aim point. In 5.22 seconds it will travel approx. 5.22 yds forward whilst in the air due to his own forward speed. This gives a nett forward travel of 5.22 - 1.5 = 3.72 yards.
Turning your body at full speed to throw further behind you than 1.5 yards over 5 yards is pretty much impossible. (Try it at home)
Therefore if we want running players to pass to other players we have to accept that the direction it leaves the hands is the only arbiter.
That's how it's been for over a 100 years now.

I'm pretty shocked that most people on here seem happy with passes in a forward direction(relative to the marker lines) as long as the thrower can run fast.
As an extreme example, most appear to think that if a player sends out a 30yard pass to the wing whilst crossing the halfway line and the receiver catches the ball on the opponents 40m line, they feel this is fine as long as the passer has continued sprinting beyond the 40m line before it reaches the receiver.
In years gone by this would have always been considered a forward pass, just as it would had it gone only a yard forward. The interpretation has definitely changed-for the worse in my opinion

We're talking about the direction in which a ball travels, and our frame of reference is a rugby pitch which has pre-determined markings. The biomechanics of a player's body when he's in the process of throwing a ball is not the same thing as the direction the ball takes after he has thrown it (it's may offer a guide to direction, but it's not the same thing).

Nope, our frame of reference is two players in motion.

That's because they understand physics...we live in a world with physical laws.

Nope. That's not the case (except in Stevo's mind)


Nope – that's not the case. The rules of rugby league have always recognised the laws of physics.

To put it simply:

Player A and B are running up the field at 3m/s (actual speeds may vary this is for illustration). Player A passes the ball to player B, who is one meter behind him (and a bit to the side). He imparts a backward velocity to the ball of 1 m/s (plus a lateral velocity which we can ignore for the purposes of this discussion). In the second it takes for the ball to travel from player A to player B, both have travelled three metres further up the pitch. Player B catches the ball 2 metres further up the pitch than where player A passed it from. But he's still 1m behind player A and it's a perfectly legal pass. And so it should be.

Player A passed the ball backwards to a player who's behind him. Within the frame of reference of the two players, it moved backwards at a velocity of 1m/s. Within the frame of reference of the pitch, ball moved forward with a velocity of 2m/s (the momentum of the two players and the ball of 3m/s less the backwards velocity imparted to it by the passing player of 1m/s).

Simple, straightforward (and it still works if the Player A grinds to a halt after passing the ball because he's been tackled) and involving no more than a basic understanding of how the universe actually works. To rule a pass which is perfectly legal and legitimate forward, when a player has passed the ball to a player behind him would be both stupid and unrealistic.

(please note this explanation ignores factors such as the fact that the players (even if standing still), the ball and the pitch are moving at around 1000mph due to the earth's rotation, plus added factors of momentum due to the planet's orbit around the sun, the sun's orbit around the galaxy etc)

Sweet Baby Jeezus...



I honestly don't understand how you have so comprehensively failed to grasp the point. For a start, the direction of the players hands as they release the ball is pretty fundamental to the direction of the ball's flight [irelative to the player[/i. Unless they're some kind of freak of nature.

For a second, the rules do not judge directionality relative to the ground. They judge it relative to the try lines/posts, and they only judge the direction that the ball is [ipropelled[/i in, not the resulting trajectory.

And finally...

Assuming that by 'genuinely flat pass' you mean a pass that finishes no nearer the opponent's try line than it starts, this would actually be a pass backward at a significant angle if the player is anything other than stationary.

You are. However the only reference to the direction the ball travels in the laws is to give examples of how a ball passed backwards could travel forwards. These include being blown by the wind and bouncing forward. I assume you think that a ball that is passed backwards and then blown forward by the wind is also a forward pass?

Which means the the direction of the pass is not necessarily judged by the actual direction the pass actually travels relative to the ground, it also has nothing to do with the position of a players hands when passing, because that is not the same as the actual direction of a pass relative to either the ground or any other given player. However, the direction of everything else on the field is relative to the ground i.e.
- the players move relative to the ground so the touchline, the try line and any other fixed line does not move, the player moves in relation to those things.
- when we judge a player onside/offside from a kick we look at the position on the ground where the players are stood, a kicker may play his team mates onside, but this does not itself determine the direction of the kick, merely whether the reciever is in front or behind the kicker relative to the fixed markings on the ground.

Right. As the rules of the game clearly state. It's judged by its direction of travel relative to the passing player (and it's a basic fact of the 'real world' that all direction is relative to something).

The only true way of judging the direction the ball is propelled in is the direction it was actually propelled in after the fact, not some kind of half baked counterfactual whereby we make a guess at which direction it might be going to go based on the biomechanics of the player making the pass and then say that a guess will do regardless of what actually happens. The way it looks like it might go, is not the same as where it did go.

Everything on the pitch is relative to the ground as marked out by fixed markers like lines and flags, as long as a player is on the pitch their direction can and is judged relative to fixed lines. A player could not be judged onside or offside if we were not fixing position in some way relative to the ground, if it was simply a matter of position relative to another player then direction would be entirely meaningless within the operation of the game.

Indeed.


So why do you want the RFL to change the rules and judge it against something else then?

Well done for spotting that we don't move the pitch underneath the players, but the players move on the pitch.



but









wtf has that got to do with anything under discussion on this thread?

I'm gonna regret this and try and make as realistic to speeds of player and ball.

Man running at 11m/s towards opponents line. Passes ball as he crosses half way line at 30m/s laterally and 0.5m/s behind him. In 1 second, ball has travelled 30m laterally and 10.5m forward(11m/s forward and .5m backward). Receiver started on the 51m line catches the ball near opponents 40m line.

Is this a forward pass-
receiver started behind the thrower.
Ball is thrown back at 0.5m/s
Ball is caught 10.5m ahead of start location.

Using simple physics the answer is no, ref doesnt have time to do calculation so guesses the direction of players hands by using the marker lines as a reference , player scores out wide, everyone shouts forward pass, Stevo claims momentum rule.
I have used an extreme case which I have no doubt would result in the ref feeling obliged to call forward.

Exactly.