I got 7/10. I wonder if anyone has been penalised for Q8 in the past 10 years?

I thought differential penalties were for ANY scrum related penalties?

Am i right in that or not?

Forward passes should only be judged forward if the ball moves forward relative to the player who passes the ball.

It's all to do with relativity; Galilean relativity states that the laws of motion are the same in all inertial frames. The problem is that after the player has passed the ball, he will often undergo an acceleration which will mean the frame of reference is no longer inertial. This makes it difficult to judge whether the ball has travelled forward or not. The only theory of relativity that can describe what happens in accelerating frames is Einstein's theory of general relativity, and I doubt the VR could use that to help him decide if a pass was forward or not, no matter how long you gave him.

Players usually are not travelling fast enough for the effects special relativity to come into play, so discarding Einstein's theories, we can go back to my original point and judge forward passes by simply applying Galilean invariance (assuming that all frames are inertial of course). There is one condition though, once you have selected your frame of reference you cannot change it when viewing the flight of the ball. This is the mistake most people make when judging forward passes. Their initial frame is the passer of the ball, they then change their frame to the pitch when viewing the flight of the ball. I would hazard a guess (although I have no empirical data to back this up), that viewed in this way around 50% of passes made to wingers travel forward. One of the problems is that your initial frame is often removed just after the pass has been made as the player is tackled. This makes judging whether the ball has gone forward very difficult, and no amount of camera angles will help you with this.

The only real solution is to look at the position of the passing player’s body and hands, and use this to judge whether the ball has been passed forward or not. I believe this is what referees currently do.

That's how I explained it last weekend.

Nice post, put going back to 'the intial frame of reference'.

Could the second the players release the ball be used in a similar way asoffside at a kick are used. That initial frame is frozen in time on the camera, you then see if the catching player is behind the passing player or are the margins too small to identify?

In the strictest sense that would only work if the two frames were identical (both players running at the same velocity), you could then assume that you have a single frame of reference. If there is any difference in the two players' velocity then this would have to be taken into account. In practice you could apply what you are suggesting, but there are those 'flat' passes that are released when the oncoming player is clearly behind the releasing player, and the ball is correctly judge to have been passed forward. But in some situations, like a long pass to the winger it could be used to explain why a forward pass hasn't been given.

So i'm assuming if the wingers velocity is slower it's easy to judge but if its faster then it becomes more complicated?

Possibly the most pointless online petition since this- https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/respon ... re-looking

Possibly the most pointless online petition since this- https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/respon ... re-looking

Sort of.

It's the player who passed the ball who's speed is important the faster he is going the faster the ball is traveling forward too. So a pass he makes, even if he passes the ball backwards relative to him, may travel forward relative to the pitch, this is not a forward pass though. The faster the player is moving forward, the faster the ball is traveling forward relative to the pitch, and the effect will be more exaggerated. It also looks worse on a long pass as everyone in the ground can clearly see the ball travel forwards, relative to the pitch, and can become very frustrated when what looks a clear forward pass is not given. You are correct in thinking that the speed makes it more difficult to judge. Most forward passes are given from acting half, when the player passing is moving sideways or is stationary, those are easy to spot.

Bringing in the player who catches the ball complicates the issue. It's two players relative speed and positions that could be used to judge whether the ball has gone forward or not. The absolute speed of each player is not the issue.

If you imagine two players on a breakaway running flat out at say 10m/s. Then the ball is travelling at this speed too. Now lets say player A passes the ball to player B who is 1m behind him, relative to the try line. Even if the ball is in the air for 0.5 seconds it will travel forward 4m relative to the pitch. This will not be a forward pass and will look fine if player A continues to run forward. If player A stops though (gets smashed as he passes) it will look a mile forward and the crowd will be incensed. If both players were running at the same speed, then you could use player B's position when he catches the ball to assume where player A would be had he not been smashed.

A good rule of thumb, is that if two players are running flat out, and the receiving player is behind the passing player when the ball is released, then it's not a forward pass. Even if it goes forward, the ref's don't generally give them.

On a related note, the ref is often in the worst possible position to judge whether a pass has gone forward or not.

Only technical offenses (ie, not binding correctly, ball placed in scrum incorrectly etc, and after the referee has given the team umpteen chances to do so correctly), foul play at the scrum is still a full penalty.

7/10 for me

I guessed most of them as well.... just like Childs does

The amount of forward passes in the game are a result of the obsession with the flat attacking line that is popular with most teams ,but we either live with what we have or bring them into the realm of the video ref & risk even more stoppages in games unless they are only to be scrutinised if a try is scored.

8/10 for me.

Harsh!