That Dobson pass was a mile forward.........

Not sure if you're taking the mick here or not, but for the record no. That is not what the rule allows for at all. The ball would not travel forward due to the player's momentum/velocity. It would be due to the player propelling the ball forward.

In any case, there is another rule that prevents that. You are not allowed to deliberately throw the ball forward.

lets cut to the chase , if the man throws the ball forward then its a forward pass wether he is hussain bolt or not
its forward end of story

A little.

It's the definition of the rule. It is in the laws of the game. It takes momentum into account. The rule is what it is due to momentum. It's not there for the sake of it. (For the record, when I say momentum, I'm using RFL definition of the word).


Hands me be part of the body, but they aren't THE body. You've used body and hands separately in that sentence, so I'll assume you're looking at them differently. Other than the hands, the rest of the body is irrelevant.

And you clearly still don't understand the rule, as the direction of the pass relative to the pitch is completely irrelevant! It's the reason the rule is there!

Thought so, but some people do actually ask me that question a lot!

How on earth do people still not understand the principle of a ball being propelled backwards yet still travelling forward relative to the floor?

I'm not sure I understand all the details of the applicable rule.

But I know a forward pass when I see one.

As a Physicist I could explain why you're wrong there. But I won't.

In a nutshell, yes.

I'm not getting drawn into one of your loooooong drawn out 'debates', which involve a disection of every word, boring the rest of the board to tears. Nobody can be d with that, let's face it.

To be fair, I'd been sat in A&E for hours so I was bored.

But it's not a debate, you was wrong and dug a hole. The final part confirmed your lack of knowledge of the rule. When the rule states "The direction of a pass is relative to the player making it and not to the actual path relative to the ground" and you say "The players body shape, hands, direction of the pass relative to the pitch is all that counts", there's a slight contradiction! You are 100% wrong to say that part in bold.

I'd happily be corrected. I just don't see how a player's momentum is the reason why the ball goes forward, as if it was then surely the player's weight would affect the ball's forward motion as well (which it doesn't).

How technical do you want to get?



Nothing continues in motion without momentum, which is the sum of an object's mass and velocity. Prior to release the player and the ball comprise a single system with momentum comprised of their joint mass and velocity; at the moment of release a portion of that momentum is transferred to the ball as the player and ball become two separate systems each with their own momentum. The sum of the momentum of the ball and the momentum of the player equals the momentum of the two together at the moment of release. That's an approximation that works for real-life events at least - the pure physics gets complicated.

It's momentum that keeps the ball moving forward relative to the ground.

I accept that, but my main point was that the player's momentum doesn't affect how far the ball moves. Newton's First Law.

I thought the RFL laws of the game had certain rules for certain clubs, silly me, i didnt realise we all played from the same book. I was under the impresion that if you wore a certain type of shirt, or came from a certain team, then you were allowed to throw the ball where ever you liked. I saw Hodgson throw a pass that was at least five yards forward last week, and that seemed to be ok, as the Warrington winger strolled in for a try. I dont get it, its the same in every game, the same teams get the rub of the green, regardless if its forward passes, lying on, hands in, offsides, it will never change and im not suprised Catalan have had enough after the decisions they got against saints, that was a *?**ing joke.

I'll take this as the definitive answer. But whats a FOWARD PASS?

Conservation of momentum trumps it. Plus there are plenty of forces acting on the ball - gravity, air resistance, the impetus given to it by the player's throw, etc.

If the player's momentum changes [iafter[/i he's released the ball then clearly that has no effect on the ball as at that point they're two separate systems. Sort of. Depending on how deep down the rabbit hole you want to go.

If the player's momentum changes BEFORE the release or AT the release, does it have an affect on the ball?

If a 10 stone player and a 20 stone player are running at the same time in the same direction at a speed of 5m/s and pass the ball at the same speed and angle, which ball would travel the furthest forward? They obviously have different momentums.

Do you know I was wondering that - talk about a post where there are so many 'I will have the last word geeks'
by the way all A FORWARD PASS IS A FORWARD PASS.

Do I get marks if I show my working out?

Now we're getting into the difficult stuff, and TBH a full discussion of conservation of momentum in open and closed systems is probably way too far OT for this board. Basically the answer is 'yes' but in practical terms the difference would be too small to be observable.

so in other words if fatty Murrell was to chuck the ball forwards three metres to craig hall then its ok

Haha, OK I can see it's getting way too complex for others to keep up (hence the sarcastic remarks) so I'll leave it at that. My understanding of it (obviously on a less complicated scale to yours) is that regardless of the sum total of the momentum of the body it would go at the same rate after release due to constant velocity and not because of the weight (so if fatty Murrell passed a ball and skinny Hall passed a ball and were both running at the same speed, the ball would travel forward at the same rate regardless of Murrell's obesity). If there's more to it than that, it's never been explained to me which is why I wanted to know. Happy to be proven wrong as long as I know why!

now you have added another issue to the first issue and that is has fatty murrell ever been been mentioned in a sentence where he was described to have velocity and momentum