RUGBY FOOTBALL

Hokitika Guardian, 19 January 1929, Page 2

RUGBY FOOTBALL

AN OFF-SIDE PROBLEM. INTERCEPTING A WILD PASS (Uv lI.P. Marshall in “London Daily .Mail). I am told by a correspondent that the.ro i.s one Rugby problem about which “referees never act alike.” As my correspondent does some refereeing himself, lie must speak from experience, but I should have thought that he would have found more unanimity of opinion on the point. Anyway, it is worth examining, and here it is: A passing movement is in progress. A centre threequaiter has the ball, and in facing a tackier pusses out to his wing. His pass is wild, and goo far behind the wing; it is intercepted by a stationary opponent info whose hands it fails. Js the opponent—who was standing between the attacking three-(|uarters and their goal-line off-side? lie is not. He has committed no breach of the rules. The off-side law is simple enough. THREE OFF-SIDE POSITIONS. There arc three occasions from set positions when a man is off-side—if he enters the scrummage from his opponents' side; if he remains in front of the hall while it is in and he is outside the scrummage or if lie stands in front of a line at right angles to the touch-line from the place the ball is throwm in from touch. Those three occasions are determinod t)y the set positions of “touch” or the scrummage and so do not affect our problem. The other broad principle is that a player is offside if the ball has boon kicked or touched or is Iming carried by one of bis own side behind him. That also does not affect this instance of interception. Even if we make the case more drastic, and suppose that a threequarter, hard pressed, flings the ball to bis full-back for him to clear, but flings it wildly over his head into the hands of a stationary opponent, and that opponent could legally take the ball and walk over the line for a try. A PROPER PUNISHMENT. It is right that it should be so, for if ail interception is made by a .stationary opponent, it must'mean that a blind or erratic pass is being justly punished. This seems simple enough; but I know that it does cause confusion—as the comments of spectators often prove-