A Tale of Two Rucks – why rugby can be so frustrating to watch

Here are two virtually identical clips from the opening weekend’s action in the 6 Nations. Both incidents resulted in the referee blowing his whistle for a penalty but can you guess which side was penalised?

Clip 1: Wales v Scotland

One of the penalties Barclay gave away at the tackle against Wales. pic.twitter.com/g4Jz6jY0Mc

— rugby (@theblitzdefence) 5 February 2018

 

Clip 2: France v Ireland

Stander wins a penalty for Ireland at the breakdown. pic.twitter.com/czCRI6rdLZ

— rugby (@theblitzdefence) 5 February 2018

 

In both examples the tackler is brought to ground and the first man in (Stander in the Ireland game and Barclay for Scotland) spiders on to his hands and then attacks the ball.

Barclay was penalised by referee Pascal Gauzere with Leigh Halfpenny kicking the 3 point penalty, while CJ Stander won the penalty from Nigel Owens as he adjudged the French carrier was holding on.

The question therefore is how can two of the best referees in the world come to different conclusions from what is effectively the same infringement?

There are a couple of possible explanations.

 

(1) The referees don’t see what we can see through the TV footage

As TV viewers, we can sometimes be at an advantage over referees in that our angle of viewing may provide a clearer picture of what is going on.  The TV cameras are fairly high and we often don’t have to look through players to see what is going on.

If we look at the Barclay penalty we can see Gauzere’s legs come in to shot at the top of the picture as he moves towards the Welsh side of tackle. He has a good view of Barclay’s hand positions from a slight angle to the ruck.

In the Stander example we can just see Owen’s white boots on the edge of the picture, which shows he  is on the French side of the ruck and perhaps has his view of Stander obscured by the other bodies on the floor.

By the time he runs around to this side of the ruck he has missed the initial hands on the floor and sees Stander with his hands on the ball (albeit still not supporting his body weight).

If there is one criticism to make of Owens in this position is that he doesn’t use Stander’s body position as an indicator that he isn’t supporting his own body weight.  Try copying Standers body position in the image above, with your head about 10 inches off the floor a metre in front of your feet. It’s impossible.

 

(2) The referees see what we see but do not view the incident in the same way

In this permutation the referees clearly see what we see, but their view on whether this is an infringement or not differs. There are lots of examples of referees at the top level allowing players to flop off their feet over the ball, even when they have a clear view.

This image is from the recent Racing92 v Munster game. Andrew Conway makes a half break and just look at the body position the Racing92 jackal makes.

The referee (yellow shirt at the bottom of the screen) has a great view of the incident but allows it.

Why the referee would allow it is the million dollar question. When the Stander incident was posted on Twitter some people commented that it was down to the referee’s interpretation.

There are two aspects to the concept of “interpretation”.  What it shouldn’t mean is that referees are free to decide how the laws are written and how they should be applied; the laws around the jackal supporting weight at the breakdown are clear – there is no room for “interpretation”.

The second definition of interpretation is that referees will come to different conclusions where they are being asked to make a judgement (often in a split second). In this example, it would mean there are referees who would have a different judgement on whether a jackal was supporting his body weight.

This second definition of “interpretation” is valid but in the examples already mentioned above it is clear that the jackal is off his feet. This isn’t a matter for interpretation.

 

Does it matter?

If your view is that ultimately rugby is entertainment, then the answer is probably no, it doesn’t matter. These sorts of technical issues are irrelevant to building up an audience and ensuring rugby thrives.

The contrary view is that rugby is now a professional sport with livelihoods at stake. In a game as close as the France-Ireland one, a penalty can be the difference between a team winning and losing.

We therefore need to make sure these decisions are accurate and consistent. To achieve this we probably need to give more help to referees at the professional level.

 

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Why Professional Rugby is Impossible to Referee

In 2015 we wrote an article asking if professional rugby is now impossible to referee (read here); 18 months on and nothing has changed and there is a case to say that the referee’s job has become even harder.

If you read any rugby forum or Twitter conversation about a top end rugby game the comments always end up being focused on how poor the referee was – but how can this be the case when we have the best referees in the world officiating?

One of the main reasons that rugby watchers end up with this view is because they see infringements against their team, that the officials don’t pick up. The natural conclusion therefore is that the officials are incompetent? But how have we got to this position?

 

Rugby – the only sport that ignores infringements?

Rugby must be the only sport in the world where (at a conservative guess) more than 90% of infringements are ignored by officials. In every other sport, if a player infringes the rules or laws of the game they are penalised – but not in rugby!

This selective penalisation of offences is partly a function of the complexity of the game but in today’s world of professional rugby, it is more a function of the mass coaching of players to infringe, knowing referees can only penalise a small number of offences or they would render the game unwatchable.

To explain this concept in more detail let’s look at a 10 second clip from the 2017 6 Nations game between France and Wales. The clip shows the last second or two of a scrum, a penalty tap and the ensuing ruck.

Yes, this clip was in the dying stages of the game and the Welsh defence was hanging on but the offences are pretty common at any stage of a game at professional level. What the footage shows is replicated across all professional rugby on a regular basis.

View post on imgur.com

To replicate the view of the respective supporters of each team, watch the clip again, firstly as a supporter of France and then as a Welsh supporter, and note down how many infringements you spot by the opposition in each case.

 

What’s an infringement?

When trying to spot the infringements, the first question that may pop in to a reader’s head is, what do you mean by infringement? Again, the complexity of rugby means we have perhaps 4 levels of laws and how they are officiated and applied:

• The Law Book – the laws of rugby as written down. Sometimes these are followed, often they are ignored or “interpreted”
• Law application guidelines and clarifications – these are official interpretations by World Rugby that are available on the website
• Officials’ guidelines – if you are referee then you will receive coaching and information that helps you in your job. At the top level, the elite referees are given instructions by World Rugby that dictate how they adjudicate the game but these instructions aren’t made widely available to the rugby watching public
• Individual referee’s interpretation – we still have referees interpreting laws differently, particularly across the two hemispheres

We won’t go in to this topic in any more detail now but it’s worth flagging the uncertainty we all have around what is or isn’t against the laws of the game.

 

The French View 

As a French supporter these are the Welsh infringements we spotted – there may be more you have seen that can be added to the list.

(1) Welsh loose head “hinges” with his head way below his hips, causing the scrum to collapse

 

(2) Welsh tight head collapses scrum under pressure – we can’t see what exactly happened given the camera angle, but this is what Wayne Barnes singles out as he penalises Wales

(3) Preventing a quick penalty tap – as Barnes signals for a French penalty, Rhys Webb tries to prevent or slow down the quick French tap by grabbing Picamoles.

 

(4) Failure to retreat from penalty – as Picamoles taps the ball at least 2 of the Welsh players in the camera view have not retreated to the try line.

 

(5) Not coming through the gate – as the tackle was made on Picamoles, Luke Charteris (number 19) approaches the tackle but fails to come through the Welsh gate, instead he flops on the tackled player on the French side in an effort to slow the ball down.

View post on imgur.com

(6)  Not getting to feet or rolling away after a tackle – Liam Williams (number 11) assisted with the tackle but instead of getting to his feet or moving away from the tackle he attempts to play the ball (or at least slow it down) while still on his knees (he is the middle player in the screen shot below).

 

(7) Failure to release the ball while off feet – we can’t see who the player is but Barnes eventually penalises a Welsh player on the floor. We can just see the ball and the players arms as he belatedly tries to get away from the ball.

 

 

The Welsh View

Now switching sides and watching the events from a Welsh perspective there are a number of French infringements we spotted:

(1) The French tight head prop Slimani binds on the arm of his Welsh opposing prop pulling him downwards and causing the scrum to collapse.

 

(2) Penalty kick taken from the right place? It isn’t clear from the camera angle but it looks like Picamoles took the penalty tap in front of Waynes and not behind him or through the line of the mark.

 

(3) Offside at the tap – any players infront of the ball when the penalty is taken must immediately retire. In this case the French number 7 continues to move forward immediately after the tap rather than retreat until he was put onside.

 

(4)  Not joining the ruck at the back foot – Maestri (wearing 5) at the top of the image doesn’t join the ruck at the back foot but halfway down the ruck and ends up on the Welsh side (see second image where we can make out his number 5 shirt).

 

11 Infringements in 10 Seconds

If we sum these infringements we get 11 infringements in total, spread across the 2 teams. This total does not include other laws that are part of the law book but are not applied today, like having heads and shoulders no lower than hips when when joining a ruck or endeavouring to stay on one’s feet at the ruck. There are numerous examples of ruck laws that are just not applied any more.

Given the number of offences by each side that are ignored by the officials, we can easily see how supporters end up feeling their team has been hard done by and then blame the referee.

There isn’t an easy solution to the problem. The 3 possibilities are:

i) coaches and players back off and stop offending so frequently – which isn’t likely to happen given the win at all costs of modern rugby

ii) the officials start to penalise more offences

iii) we move towards the american football model of officiating, with a number of officials looking at different types of offences at any time

We will look at these options in a future blog, but for now it is easy to appreciate why supporters from all sides get frustrated during matches.  For those supporters who know the laws of the game, rugby can be a frustrating game to watch at the moment.

 

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King of the Jackals – Steffon Armitage?

Last week theblitzdefence asked if the ruck area was being refereed correctly given the explanation in law 15.6 around defenders playing the ball after the tackle. https://theblitzdefence.wordpress.com/2015/01/20/the-day-of-the-jackal/. Even though law 15.6 makes it clear that a defender must be supporting their own body weight at the tackle area this law is applied very inconsistently in the modern game.

Rather than analyse the law in conceptual terms it would be good to see how this law was applied in practice. Thankfully it looked as if the rugby gods were looking after us because on the 24th January the European Rugby Champions Cup pitted the Scarlets against Toulon and this gave us a chance to analyse the much vaunted King of the Jackals, Steffon Armitage.

Armitage moved to Toulon for the 2011/12 season and has matured in to one of the finest players in the Top 14, culminating in the ERC European Player of the Year for 2013/14. His physique – and with it his playing style, has developed over the last few years so he now primarily operates as a destructive open side with a focus on the jackal and slowing opposition ball at the ruck.

He is now regarded as one of the best open sides in the world and he therefore provides us with a good case study to see how law 15.6 is applied at the highest level of northern hemisphere rugby. The referee was Wayne Barnes from England and Armitage was playing opposite another conventional open side in John Barclay.

Background to the game

The Scarlets have been decimated with injuries to their tight five and as a result couldn’t call on a number of players who would have made the match squad. These include Samson Lee (neck injury), Ken Owens (returning from long term neck injury), Rhodri Jones (dislocated shoulder), Emyr Phillips (dislocated shoulder) and Phil John (knee).

This meant the forward battle was always going to be a struggle against the powerful Toulon pack who boasted a number of top internationals on their bench.

The first half

Armitage had a quiet first half from a defensive perspective, due in no small part to the fact Toulon dominated possession and territory and built up a comfortable 3-19 lead by half time. The French team had a number of strong ball carriers who repeatedly breached the Scarlets gain line meaning for most of the first half they had strong front- foot ball to play off.

Even though Toulon had large amounts of possession Armitage only made two carries of note in the whole game, the second of which resulted in him losing possession in contact.

Unlike other top class open sides it is noticeable that Armitage very rarely tackles players around the legs, more often preferring to smother the player around the chest and instigates the attack on the ball as the attacker begins the fall to ground.

The second half

The paucity of Scarlets possession in the first half didn’t allow Armitage to show his talents but the second half saw the open side have a big influence on the game through his work at the breakdown as the Scarlets came back in to the game.

In the defensive line Armitage tends to stand out 2 players from the ruck and often defends in the 10 channel when a shortened lineout is called. The Scarlet’s lack of ball carriers who could breach the gain line was always going to stifle their attacking game but their tactics of probing around the narrow Toulon channels with lightweight backs was baffling because this brought Armitage right in to the game.

Wayne Barnes gave 4 penalties to Toulon at the breakdown as a result of Armitage’s work and also penalise him once. We will now look at these 5 incidents in detail.

43 minutes – Armitage wins penalty

This incident is perhaps the most difficult to judge given the attacker Rob Evans ends up on top of players from the previous ruck so obscuring the ball. The Scarlets have put themselves in a difficult position by playing an inside ball to a static player who is tackled by one Toulon player allowing Armitage to attack the ball.

The ball is not visible to the camera but from Aled Davies’ body language the ball has got to floor and Armitage is playing at it. We can’t conclude if Armitage was supporting his weight on his hands but a glance at his body shape and in particular his feet position suggest he is resting on the players on the ground.

Verdict: inconclusive

53 minutes – Armitage wins penalty

Again the Scarlets put themselves in trouble; they win decent lineout ball but Scott Williams is well tackled by the Toulon 10 and Barclay is slow to support giving Armitage time to attack the ball before Scott Williams can position his body.

This is a text book legal jackal. Armitage’s legs are planted wide and perpendicular to the touch line, he can try and rip the ball with both hands, his spine is straight and he has kept his head down to make it harder to clear him off the ball.

Verdict: great steal and good decision from Barnes

57 minutes – Armitage is penalised

A Scarlets rolling maul is halted so Aled Davies plays a switch with Kristian Phillips, sending a small winger in to the heart of the Toulon defence. The outcome is inevitable with one Toulon player tackling low allowing Armitage to hit high and then begin to attach to the ball as the defender falls to ground.

This is a common pattern we see with Toulon where the first defender takes the attacker around the legs allowing Armitage to focus on the ball and defender’s upper body.

Armitage spiders over the ball and places both hands on the floor. Wayne Barnes is well placed and penalises him for being off his feet at the ruck.

Verdict: good decision from Barnes

58 minutes – Armitage wins penalty

The Scarlets struggle to make headway over the gain line and the ruck forms. Armitage seems to then come over the ruck, after it has formed and then places his hands on the ball.

Verdict: Incorrect decision from Barnes

74 minutes – Armitage wins penalty

There is no wonder Armitage has a chuckle after winning this penalty given the fact he is clearly resting both hands on the floor and he goes off his feet at the ruck. The surprising thing about this decision is that Wayne Barnes is well placed to see the offence and it is very similar in nature to the 57 minute offence where he penalised Armitage.

Verdict: Wrong decision from Barnes

Is he the King of Jackals?

There is no doubt that Armitage is very strong at the breakdown and when he gets his feet and body position in the right place he can cause all sorts of problems to the attacking team. His body shape makes him very difficult to knock off the ball and it is nearly impossible to dislodge when he is allowed to place one or more hands on the floor.

Armitage actually makes few full tackles for an open side but his role in the Toulon back row is to attack and disrupt the ball as the second defender. He does this particularly well and often starts to hold on to the ball before the defender has reached the floor. This takes a great deal of upper body strength.

While saying Armitage is very good at his specific role we have to question if the adjudicating of the ruck area at this level is according to the written laws. Numerous penalties given in the game were for players resting their hands, arms or even elbows on the floor over the ball. Wayne Barnes was consistent in the application of this interpretation of the breakdown and there are examples of the Scarlets winning penalties in similar dubious circumstances.

What is confusing is that Barnes was in good positions to see most of the incidents which seems to indicate that not supporting your body weight at the ruck is tacitly, if not expressly, permitted at the top level. This goes against the written law and brings confusion to supporters and viewers alike.

It’s not all about Armitage…

We couldn’t have an article on the jackal without showing perhaps the most obviously illegal steal of the night by Lobbe. Barnes gave a penalty against the Scarlets in this incident. If a player’s nose is on the floor that is usually a good sign the player is off his feet!

The Day of the Jackal

The Day of the Jackal

In decades past rugby fans had the pleasure of watching the jinking runs of Phil Bennett or Jonathan Davies or the balanced running of Phillipe Sella or Jeremy Guscott. Players such as Barry John, David Duckham, David Campese, Mark Ella, Mike Gibson and Serge Blanco brought crowds to their feet with their attractive, inventive rugby.

The advent of professional rugby has brought a number of changes to the way the game is played, and in today’s rugby world side steps and swerves have been replaced with the blitz defence, pillars and perhaps the most recognisable skill of 21^st century rugby – the jackal.

Some of the biggest names in modern rugby have made their names through their mastery of the jackal. Richie McCaw, Sam Warburton, David Pollock are some of the greatest exponents of the skill from the openside position but the backs have also got in to the action with Brian O’Driscoll in particular developing his defensive game in his later years to the point that his trademark became the jackal rather than the midfield break.

Like the opportunistic scavengers they are named after, the rugby playing version is the name given to a player who attempts to win the ball from an attacking player when the attacker has been tackled and brought to ground. The jackal then approaches the tackle area from his defensive side and hinging at the waist bends over to pick up the ball.

What the law says

Sounds simple? It does indeed and the World Rugby (or what we all still call the International Rugby Board) Laws of the Game provides a nice explanation of what you can and can’t do at the tackle area. This is what law 15.6 says:

After a tackle, all other players must be on their feet when they play the ball. Players are on their feet if no other part of their body is supported by the ground or players on the ground.

Sanction: Penalty kick

Let’s explore what the law says here a little further and have a look at the first sentence – “…all other players must be on their feet when they play the ball”. The key words here are “…on their feet…”. Surely even the most inexperienced referee can spot when a player is on their feet at the tackle area? Well, no not always because “on their feet” does not just mean having their feet in contact with the ground!

That’s right, the laws don’t define the defender as being “on their feet” solely as someone who has the bottom of their Adidas Flankers planted firmly on terra firma. It is the second sentence in the law which helps define when a defender is on their feet or not and this is achieved by bringing in the defining words …”no other part of their body is supported by the ground or players on the ground.”

In practise this means that a defender must be supporting their own body weight at all times in the tackle area in order to be able to play the ball. This means our defender can’t rest his knees on the back of the tackled player on the floor nor can he cannot support his body weight on his hands, arms or elbows.

The IRB, sorry World Rugby has even provided a useful still in the law 15.6 description to show what a player looks like when he is off his feet at the breakdown. In the picture you can clearly see number 13 on his hands and knees over the ball – and there are a few other players in white who are also not supporting their body weight. The sanction is a penalty kick for the attacking team.

Why is law 15.6 important?

Since the game has turned professional the ruck area has become a key focal point of attention for the attacking team but perhaps even more importantly so for the defending team. There are a couple of reasons why.

Firstly if a defender (our jackal) can win the ball at the breakdown they can then attack against a disorganised defence who weren’t expecting to lose the ball in contact. Secondly, because the attacking team knows that they are vulnerable if they lose the ball at the breakdown they will often deliberately infringe and give away a penalty rather than face an attacking team with turnover ball.

Even if a jackal can’t win the ball they can often slow down the attacking ball so that their defence has time to reorganise.

The key to success in rugby as an attacking team is to find space and the faster the ball can be presented for distribution after a tackle is made the higher the chances of success. Defending teams know this and the jackal has developed as the key weapon to countering this and to slow down the ruck ball.

How the law is applied?

In most professional rugby games law 15.6 either isn’t applied or if we are being generous we can say it is inconsistently applied. Whether this is because of a conscious decision by the governing bodies we don’t know but what is clear is that the ineffective refereeing of the ruck, and in particular the body position of the first jackaling defender is slowing down the ball which we know gives time for defences to reorganise.

When you watch your next professional rugby game follow the first defender who attacks the ruck. In the majority of cases the jackal will spider over the ball on to his hands and then attempt to attack the ball as he comes back up to a standing position. It is almost a given that this jackal will be resting his knees on the tackled player on the floor and if you are really lucky you may even see the defender fall on to one or both elbows before coming back up towards the ball.

These actions are all contrary to law 15.6 and should be penalised by a penalty kick.

Actually don’t take my word for it, let’s look at a real example from perhaps one of the greatest exponents of the illegal jackal playing today. Peter O’Mahony plays for Munster and Ireland and in this screen shot taken from the 2014 Ireland v Wales 6 Nations game a tackle has been made and O’Mahony is the jackal over the ball.

Notice his right elbow is on the turf and his right hand and lower arm is also in contact with the grass. Is he supporting his body weight? No, he is clearly in contravention of the law but the referee in this case gave a penalty against Wales for holding on at the ruck.

How do we get out of this mess?

We need to speed up the game and provide attacking teams with cleaner and faster ball. A quick and easy way to do this is by ensuring referees consistently and rigidly apply law 15.6 and require the defenders to support their own body weight at the breakdown.

The law is clearly written – we now need referees to apply it.

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