If a player simply doesn't have time to get out of the way around the PTB then the referee could manage the situation by delaying the PTB.

This of course would slow down the game and would remove the attacking sides impetus, but it is one very clunky "solution".

Bottom line is it's the defenders responsibility to get out of the way. We need to be careful otherwise defenders will deliberately stay in the room area knowing they won't be penalised.

I know it's subjective however imo the ref needs to make a call as to whether the defender is in a position where they are interfering (whether the ball is thrown deliberately at them or not), if they are then it is a penalty to the attacking side. If they are judged to be in a position where they are not interfering with play and the attacker has thrown the ball at them it's play on, if the bank has gone forward like the jones one then it's a forward pass.

March 2nd.

Your absence from SL threads will be eagerly awaited.

Brough wasn't even in the way. There was no legal pass that could have put him in the way. It was the most blatant case of cheating to get a penalty I've seen. He passed over a foot forward! To me, Jones should have been binned for 10. We need to get this out of our game and quick. Before anyone says 'Cas did it', I didn't agree with McShane doing it in our game last week as he could have passed around the player or in the other direction, even though the player on the ground was in the ruck area. We don't need this slowing the game down.

Exactly. Sometimes it may be a 'grey area', but in Jones's case it certainly wasn't. And he should certainly have been penalised.

If the defender is making an attempt to move from the ruck then it can be argued that he is discharging his responsibility. A penalty for something a player can't avoid is a pointless and unjust penalty. As is always the case a penalty is designed to discourage the infringement; if a player is rolling away and has the ball thrown (forward) at him what is it we are discouraging by penalising him?

Way i see it is .....would the pass that has hit the 'defender' be a legal pass in normal play ?
ie would a player deliberately throw a pass to the ground or forward ? the answer to that is no so unless a defender is actually stood in the way, being above waist height of the ball, as that is usually more or less the height of where a ball is passed from DH, then it should be penalised and given to the defending team, how can the Referees ignore the usual rules of the game because someone has chosen to throw the ball forward and onto the ground as happened yesterday ?
If a player on the ground as Brough was wasn't there why would you purposely aim a pass to the floor ?

It's cheating and it needs to be stopped - that one last night was disgraceful and Jones should be made to apologise for it !!!

It's getting ridiculous, and it's nothing but cheating!
yes, sometimes defenders do hang around in the ruck too long, but that's upto referee's to penalise them, but with the one last night, Brough had just completed the tackle and was in no way trying to interfere with the PTB, although he could have been penalised for a high/grapple tackle before that.

It's the same with moving off the mark, diving etc if it starts getting penalised and discouraged by coaches it will stop, i think this throwing the ball at people is a disgrace to the game and it should be the priority this week to get it banished from the game before even more fans give the game up.

Amended for accuracy.

a Huddersfield fan taking the high ground about cheating. Remind me again how your club avoided relegation 10 years ago?

Regards

King James

I didn't realise we had avoided relegation 10 years ago, care to enlighten me?

And as it's a public forum then i, as a Huddersfield fan have every right to have an opinion on anything, get your head out of your

Last night Leigh v Leeds showed the right way to penalized at the ruck , What we saw on Thurs was nothing but =#FF0000Cheating/Manipulating the rules after that incident i wanted Hudds to stick it up em, Normally i like Salford & they fans but that stop for this game but this sort of actions has to be stop immediately by the Muppets at the RFL.

Exactly.

Now had Jones ran into him and "tripped over" then at least there's an argument to be made that the defender was offside. But to throw the ball forward at him is a disgrace. The ref should have known better than to give that. There is no situation where that would have been legal.

Correct , the moment the ball left his hand forward before it hit the player it was a pass , so scrum to opposition

If as happened last week when Hood threw the ball back into the line and hit the Cas player , then that was a legitimate offside

My apologies. As Huddersfield have done nothing for years and been so unmemorable my memory has been hazy. Let me rephrase it. Remind me again how Huddersfield cheated, sorry, avoided relegation 18 seasons ago?

Regards

King James

That would be the year we finished bottom again and expected to be relegated, only for the RFL to deny Hunslet, who had won the NFP Grand Final, entry into Super League the following year based on their ground not meeting criteria/standards required ?

Or is that not the answer you wanted ?

It's so easy to fix - I can't see any controversy. If the defender is interfering with play in a meaningful way - it's a penalty to the attacking team. If the attacker commits what would ordinarily be an offence in trying to prove that the defender is interfering - he has still committed an offence and that should be penalised in the way it normally would; in the Jones instance, a forward pass.

I guess it relies on the ref being able to differentiate one from the other, so if you want to be charitable, you could suggest that the players don't have confidence in the officials to do that consistently, so they try to force the issue; personally I don't believe that - I think it's just cynical cheating.

It seems the RFL are listening!

I expect defenders to just stand around doing their nails now

Is a deliberate forward pass not a penalty now? (Or has it ever been?

)

Wow.... Common sense actuallly prevails for once... I just hope they also apply this to the PTB area - if the Ref is calling 'milking', it should be followed by a penalty of this nature!

The problem with the RFL statement is that the defenders tended not to be penalised for interference unless the ball hits them or an attacker runs into them which is why the dummy half started throwing the ball into the defender in the first place. This was generally in done in the interest of letting the game flow which is not necessarily a bad thing.

This relies on refs having the understanding of when the defender is affecting play which I'm not sure too many refs are able to do.

I dunno - I think it's pretty clear if someone is trying to impede or not - also if they are making sufficient effort to clear the ruck/not stand in passing lanes etc.

I dont think we'll see too much of it now anyway, it's not worth conceding a penalty over when you could keep the ball and attack

We also don't need defenders loitering around the ptb after a tackle, slowing it down thinking they can get away with it.

Well well well being one of the RFL's biggest critics I must take off my flat cap to them, for showing they have some balls.