Morning,

I know this has probably been covered on the forums before . . . and I know the rule has been apparent for a long time . . . but as I watched Bradford and Catalans yesterday . . . I wondered . . .

[iWhy can the video ref not be used for a forward pass call?[/i

Thanks!

cause its a refs call

because one angle can make it look forward whereas another will make it look perfectly fine.

Indeed, and you can't use the position of the passer/receiver as due to their forward speed, the ball could well be going backwards relative to the passer, yet still forward relative to the pitch.

The law of perspective

But there is a great deal of uncertainty surrounding lots of video ref calls - knock-ons, who played the ball, grounded properly etc. Many of them are debat-able so I reckon it's time to bring forward passes in too.

In onside/offside calls, players can sometimes look offside from one angle and onside from another, sometimes you can't even tell at all because they're not seen on a specific camera angle. I don't see how we shouldn't be able to rule out blatantly obvious forward passes by referring a call upstairs - if they're unsure you can always give the 'benefit of the doubt'

You've just made that up.

Yup. Along with the physical fact of momentum.


cue: rerun of Johnsenior's forward pass thread and people running down corridors throwing bundles of clothes through doorways.

All those years of sleeping through Physics lectures has finally paid off.

Because there are too many forward passes for a video ref to deal with.

For some reason i thought the RFL had done away with the penalty try too, not sure why?

For stripping, that could be where you're getting confused?

Only when Saints play.

Agreed. The use of the "flat pass" from acting half means that if we pulled up every pass that was technically forward according to the laws we'd have one at least every other set of 6.

Backwards relative to where the passer is on the field when the receiver catches it, as opposed to forward from where the passer was on the field when he let go of it.

You never did get this, did you?

Thanks All

I now have a better understanding!