Was Sexton's Pass Really Forward?

Ireland's second most promising move of the second half came in the form of a long cut out pass from sexton, almost in the form of one of Quade cooper's wonder deliveries.

The crowd hissed. Joubert dallied a second and then called the pass forward.

But did he fall Into the frame of reference trap?

On the same day we saw Steve Walsh question and then allow a magnificent Scottish try from what enflandglory4ever likes to call a "momentum pass".

Should Joubert have allowed play to continue and then checked with the tmo? Did he react to the crowd?

I think it was flat, but he missed the odd true forward pass. Evened out but this decision was probably wrong

Ireland had gotten well and truly behind the very narrow English defense, and really this is where the momentum shifted.

Was it a bigger and more consequential call than it appeared?

Watching it again I believe you are right - it appeared flat.

We'll never know...

I think it was forward. It was a bad pass.

Farrell and Lawes should have been carded though.

It came forward out of the hand so was correctly called. Was just as frustrated as it looked like a possible special coming up but fair enough and a good call.

Possibly could have, surprised neither were, should also have been a card on the Irish try line when we butchered a try and kicked a penalty for equally as cynical and persistent offending as in the Lawes case. He was consistent

disneychilly wrote:It came forward out of the hand so was correctly called. Was just as frustrated as it looked like a possible special coming up but fair enough and a good call.

Agree with this. It was fairly clear cut.

It was forward as his hands went forward.

Simple really.

Joubert is a good balanced ref for the most part ref but he is such a homer. Seems to avoid giving key calls to away teams. He had at least a couple of ops to award Ireland a pen in the closing minutes but bottled it each time. Games like this though if you are holding out for favours from the ref you have lost before you have started. We need to turn the screw at 10-3 up, sadly Sexton bottled it again though.

Don't think he penalised anyone for going off their feet. Clearly very very lax there. But at least it was the same for both sides.

Yeah I don't like what Joubert is doing at the breakdown anymore. He's letting too much go.

Ireland could easily have had penalties at the scrum, kickable ones too. Agree he's a bit of a homer these days.

Ah, come on. We're not going to go there are we?

These refs are always homers when you play away and lose.

All refs are to a degree, crowd pointing out oppo mistakes and infringements loudly and all that. Part of home advantage...

I thought his hands went slightly forward so correct decision in my opinion. It was a real pity, Kearney had done his man and there was a gaping hole in the cover. He was heading for the sticks and may not have been caught.

lol, Typical. England win and now the ref is a homer and we also get a typical post from GE saying the game changed when he thought the ref made a mistake.

You guys do realise he missed things that went against England too.

Who cares, Ireland lost. Edited personal comments.

nottins_again wrote:

nottins_again wrote:Who cares, Ireland lost.

I see we have some (very) over sensitive (Irish) mods these days who've deleted part of my post, but still let GE (Grey Ghost) post his anti English provocative posts. Sad, very sad. Grow up.

I'd be disappointed if a mod has edited a post without mentioning in the post why. As with Rugby, communication is paramount.

nathan wrote:

nottins_again wrote:

nottins_again wrote:Who cares, Ireland lost.

I see we have some (very) over sensitive (Irish) mods these days who've deleted part of my post, but still let GE (Grey Ghost) post his anti English provocative posts. Sad, very sad. Grow up.

I'd be disappointed if a mod has edited a post without mentioning in the post why. As with Rugby, communication is paramount.

Thats handled over PM, which is in the interests of the poster.

Totally predictable by GE ...

Notch wrote:

nathan wrote:

nottins_again wrote:

nottins_again wrote:Who cares, Ireland lost.

I see we have some (very) over sensitive (Irish) mods these days who've deleted part of my post, but still let GE (Grey Ghost) post his anti English provocative posts. Sad, very sad. Grow up.

I'd be disappointed if a mod has edited a post without mentioning in the post why. As with Rugby, communication is paramount.

Thats handled over PM, which is in the interests of the poster.

ah cool, could you not just put a edited by mod in red on the post. It can sometimes make it a disjointed read when posts suddenly change.

No problem   

Poor old GE ... has difficulty coming to terms with life. Well done Ireland a cracking match. And from both sides. Too bad someone had to lose but rugby won today. And 6n now wide open.

Let's be clear. I congratulated England on a fine win on the match thread and said they were the better team in the day.

However this thread was really just to axknowledge in my mind anyway, possibly one of two match deciding incidents. It was a great pass, very clever exploitation of the space created by England's compressed defense (similarly to the French last gasp score a few weeks ago), and a blistering run by Kearney which could have turned the match - that's why I suggested the momentum swung - I'm not trying to say the referee cheated or Ireland were robbed or anything like that. Merely just that it was probably the moment that got away from Ireland. On another day the pass might've been allowed.

Small margins between these teams as the rankings demonstrate.

Wales v England will be a real cracker as will Ireland v France.

Now, suggest everyone cools down and realises there's no anti-anybody agenda behind discussing key moments in the match.

I thought to be fair there were a couple of forwards passes given which were marginal (including this one) and could have gone either way. Then again, there were a few "flat" ones which could have been given as forward, so... Generally thought Joubert had a pretty good game really, you could argue Lawes and Best could have been binned for their somewhat cynical infringements, I am surprised Joubert didn't at least have a word, but it was consistent refereeing at least.

Launchbury being held in the ruck for the Irish try is cheating/clever depending on which team you support I guess but generally Joubert seemed happy to let the game flow which was nice for a spectator, and I don't think either team can have any real complaints about the ref for this one.

I just watched the highlights. It looked marginal if anything. Certainly no worse than a number of passes involved in the tries by England, Italy and Scotland. My thoughts are it's one of those line calls that might go to go against you if you are playing away, but you'd probably get away with at home.

A couple of other thoughts from the weekend (bearing in mind I've only seen highlights)

* How many times were there high tackles that went unpunished.

* The ruck was just plain ugly in a the Wales/France game.

Lawes shouldn't have even been penalised. He never unbound from the Irish player in the maul, therefore the maul never ended, meaning he didn't have to roll away while the ball was off the floor. However Joubert deemed the maul to have ended. After Lawes got up he could be heard saying "I know why you didn't move" (or something like that). It wasn't a cynical infringement, it was a mistake (from the ref IMO) so he went for the penalty.

HammerofThunor wrote:Lawes shouldn't have even been penalised. He never unbound from the Irish player in the maul, therefore the maul never ended, meaning he didn't have to roll away while the ball was off the floor. However Joubert deemed the maul to have ended. After Lawes got up he could be heard saying "I know why you didn't move" (or something like that). It wasn't a cynical infringement, it was a mistake (from the ref IMO) so he went for the penalty.

Joubert though can clearly be heard shouting repeatedly "5 roll away!" (or words to that effect). Regardless of whether Lawes thought he was in his rights not to (and I see where you're coming from) when the ref tells you to move, you move... I do wonder if you're right though in the sense that Joubert didn't bin (or even severely talk to) Lawes on the basis that it was a borderline call, and if that influenced his subsequent treatment of Best (who I thought at the time was lucky to get away with it...)

Mad for Chelsea wrote:

HammerofThunor wrote:Lawes shouldn't have even been penalised. He never unbound from the Irish player in the maul, therefore the maul never ended, meaning he didn't have to roll away while the ball was off the floor. However Joubert deemed the maul to have ended. After Lawes got up he could be heard saying "I know why you didn't move" (or something like that). It wasn't a cynical infringement, it was a mistake (from the ref IMO) so he went for the penalty.

Joubert though can clearly be heard shouting repeatedly "5 roll away!" (or words to that effect). Regardless of whether Lawes thought he was in his rights not to (and I see where you're coming from) when the ref tells you to move, you move... I do wonder if you're right though in the sense that Joubert didn't bin (or even severely talk to) Lawes on the basis that it was a borderline call, and if that influenced his subsequent treatment of Best (who I thought at the time was lucky to get away with it...)

Probably worth noting that Joubert was critcised and apparently reanalysed his game following his management of the ruck in the NZ England game in November. At issue were players on the ground at the ruck. This is his only his second game since then.

I like Joubert. He's not pernickety, he lets the game mostly take care of itself and is consistent in his decision making. As a fan, there's little not to like about watching a game with Joubert in charge, you know what you're going to get.

disneychilly wrote:It came forward out of the hand so was correctly called. Was just as frustrated as it looked like a possible special coming up but fair enough and a good call.

I understand what you're saying, but this example highlights the real weakness in the 'forward motion of hands' test - in this case, Sexton was running diagonally to his left, and in such a situation it is more than possible for his pass to appear forwards (relative to his own body and motion), but which is actually backwards in relation to the pitch.

We need to ignore this 'hands moving backwards' test, which is inherently flawed - it's so open to interpretation and variation of handling technique that it's just not a scientific rule against which to measure passes. Consider also that it only works when the passer is running straight towards the try line - any angle to the side would allow the passing player to legally pass the the ball forwards relative to his heading, but the hands rule would flag it up as a forward pass (i.e. the runner is moving at a 45º angle to the try line, passes to his left (away from the try line) at a 60º angle. This is forward relative to himself, but not relative to the try line).

Instead, we simply need to decide whether the ball has gone forwards or backwards relative to the moving body of the passing player. This is easy to judge live. If the player passes and is then tackled (thus denying a live comparison against which to judge the passed ball), then the TMO can project an imaginary version of the player moving at the same speed and angle as when the ball was passed. If the ball was offloaded after the player was tackled, his speed can be deemed to be zero, meaning that any movement of the ball ahead of the point at which it was passed must constitute a forward pass. In such a situation, the TMO can be asked to judge whether the ball left the passer's hands before or after he was tackled, thus invoking different sets of rules for ball behaviour.

GloriousEmpire wrote:Let's be clear. I congratulated England on a fine win on the match thread and said they were the better team in the day.

However this thread was really just to axknowledge in my mind anyway, possibly one of two match deciding incidents. It was a great pass, very clever exploitation of the space created by England's compressed defense (similarly to the French last gasp score a few weeks ago), and a blistering run by Kearney which could have turned the match - that's why I suggested the momentum swung - I'm not trying to say the referee cheated or Ireland were robbed or anything like that. Merely just that it was probably the moment that got away from Ireland. On another day the pass might've been allowed.

Small margins between these teams as the rankings demonstrate.

Wales v England will be a real cracker as will Ireland v France.

Now, suggest everyone cools down and realises there's no anti-anybody agenda behind discussing key moments in the match.

Nice try GE but you're not fooling anyone as the 'key moments' you pick out always seem to be when England have won and you try to find calls by the ref that you think went in England's favour whilst totally ignoring any calls that went against them.

Ireland did not become a bad team over night.

England was simply a better team on the day.

At half time any one would of thought that the game would end up being a draw with the way the game was going.

But England fought back and made it very interesting when Danny Care went over and made it 10 all. And then Ireland gave away a penalty and Farrel booted it over.

Ireland with their experience could not brake England defence sive line, but did not make it any easyer for England it was a hard fought game the best of the tournament so far imo.

How much longer can the likes of Darcey, Oconnel keep going for? will they both be in the team/squad for the RWC? Or should the question be more like Darcey and Ocnnel should not be in the team/squad for the RWC.

Check out the lines on the pitch, Sexton was lateral running and the ball still went about 3/4m forward.

It was an obvious forward pass that mattered little in the context of the game.

It was forward.

Just been watching the game, anyone notice Murrey crossing to impede May when he kicked ahead.

Mad for Chelsea wrote:I thought to be fair there were a couple of forwards passes given which were marginal (including this one) and could have gone either way. Then again, there were a few "flat" ones which could have been given as forward, so... Generally thought Joubert had a pretty good game really, you could argue Lawes and Best could have been binned for their somewhat cynical infringements, I am surprised Joubert didn't at least have a word, but it was consistent refereeing at least.

Launchbury being held in the ruck for the Irish try is cheating/clever depending on which team you support I guess ;)but generally Joubert seemed happy to let the game flow which was nice for a spectator, and I don't think either team can have any real complaints about the ref for this one.

Agree with what you say except for the Launchbury holding claim. Not in a million years would that have been penalised. He wasn't even that close to the play. It is so marginal that I'm surprised the BBC even bothered to highlight it.

England scored an equally legitimate try v Australia in Nov with a much more blatant block.

England got away with a number of infringements in the scrum and most noticeably in the maul particularly the last Ireland maul. I have no clue how Lawes didn't get a yellow for lying on the wrong side of the ruck and playing the ball on the ground with Ireland camped on the England line. Farrell deserved a card too.

Ireland got away with some things too but IMO key decisions were homer ones which is to be expected from Joubert who despite that was pretty good throughout the day. I don't feel hard done by at all because if you want to win at Twickers you have to take the ref out of the game by turning the screw when ahead. We fell short on the day in what was a great game.

For me, the pass looked forward. I have seen them allowed but it was a good call.

Why is anybody actually bothering with this one?

Do you think there would be a thread if it was an England pass that had been pulled up?

Its laughable all the bad vibes because England won.

GeordieFalcon wrote:Why is anybody actually bothering with this one?

Do you think there would be a thread if it was an England pass that had been pulled up?

Its laughable all the bad vibes because England won.

There are no bad vibes Geordie. England did what they needed to do. Cant argue with their win really.

Stupid post. Of course it was forward. The ref applied the law. GE demonstrates once again that he really hasn't grasped even the basic laws.

Just heard that the IRB will use video of the incident to show refs how easy it is to spot forward passes. Personally I think it's a bit too forward to be that useful. My half-blind Granny (bless her) called that one, and she had her back to the TV and had lost her specs again. I believe the rugby fraternity are going to call blatant forward passes 'throwing a Sexton' from now on.

Barney McGrew did it wrote:Just heard that the IRB will use video of the incident to show refs how easy it is to spot forward passes. Personally I think it's a bit too forward to be that useful. My half-blind Granny (bless her) called that one, and she had her back to the TV and had lost her specs again. I believe the rugby fraternity are going to call blatant forward passes 'throwing a Sexton' from now on.

Let's hope Wayne Barnes is in attendance when the IRB do their show and tell.

GunsGerms wrote:

Agree with what you say except for the Launchbury holding claim. Not in a million years would that have been penalised. He wasn't even that close to the play. It is so marginal that I'm surprised the BBC even bothered to highlight it.

It should be penalised though, it was premeditated and cynical part of a worked move that relies on deliberate infringing to work. The reason he wasnt close to the play was because he was stopped from getting to the gap which was his to cover, he had plenty of time to be there without the block.

Refs started picking up the blocks on kick chasers, then on forwards overrunning the ruck and blocking the opposition from entering it legally. Its time they clamped down on this sort of thing and encouraged teams to try and play legally rather than looking for ways to cheat. Im sure its not just Ireland/Leinster doing it but it does need to be controlled or the game will become more like NFL

Why pick just that one thing in the free for all ruck that Joubert allowed? He allows so much Leeway now he reminds me of Bryce Lawrence.

Peter Seabiscuit Wheeler wrote:

GunsGerms wrote:

Agree with what you say except for the Launchbury holding claim. Not in a million years would that have been penalised. He wasn't even that close to the play. It is so marginal that I'm surprised the BBC even bothered to highlight it.

It should be penalised though, it was premeditated and cynical part of a worked move that relies on deliberate infringing to work. The reason he wasnt close to the play was because he was stopped from getting to the gap which was his to cover, he had plenty of time to be there without the block.

Refs started picking up the blocks on kick chasers, then on forwards overrunning the ruck and blocking the opposition from entering it legally. Its time they clamped down on this sort of thing and encouraged teams to try and play legally rather than looking for ways to cheat. Im sure its not just Ireland/Leinster doing it but it does need to be controlled or the game will become more like NFL

Sorry not in a million years. I take it you think that Owen Farrells try v Australia in Nov should have been disallowed. That try freatured a block by Hartley on Stephen Moore that was reviewed by the tmo. Moore was actually in Farrells line and a potential tackler. Launchbury was hardly in play for the Kearney try.


http://www.bbc.com/sport/0/rugby-union/24779192

He probably should have penalised POM ahead of Mays non try for a high tackle as well but refs make mistakes. Don't see a homer performance to be honest.

No 7&1/2 wrote:He probably should have penalised POM ahead of Mays non try for a high tackle as well but refs make mistakes. Don't see a homer performance to be honest.

Yeah, I was a little surprised that it didn't go back for at least a penalty after that.

Still, I think he was one of those awayer refs

Yeah cos two feet off the ground constitutes a high tackle..you should be more concerned at your players ineptitude with a free man outside