When do you call obstruction?

First topic message reminder :

There have been a few incidents in international games which have divided opinion. Specifically, POC's tussle with Launchbury last weekend and Dylan Hartley's positioning during Farrell's autumn try against Australia.

Today, the Crusaders played the Blues and Colin Slade scored a try which the Blues clearly felt was the result of obstruction. It seemed that way to me at first sight but the referee so no reason to refer it, and the commentary says it "looked to be a very well-executed try".

You can see the passage of play from the 1:27 mark



Since none of us have a dog in this fight, so I was curious how supporters of our tournament's various nations see this. I think I'd be unhappy if it was scored against England next weekend, and slightly bashful if it was awarded to us.

(Incidentally, if you want to see a nice try from a restart, watch the video from around the 3:58 mark)

quinsforever wrote:hardly appalling. they weren't saying the french defenders should have cheated, just been a bit more obvious about having been impeded to make it easier for the ref to refer to the TMO.

frankly i think refs need to be given clear guidance that all dummy runner moves resulting in a try get referred to the TMO for review. it's not possible for the referee in the middle of the action to see everything in realtime speed. the crusaders is an even more obvious example. not a chance that would have been allowed on referral.

still, obstruction is not as much of a problem as the scrums. awful in the second half sco v fra. and the ref seemed fairly clueless. i thought pollock was exceptionally consistent elsewhere, but the scrums were a lottery.

No.

No.

No.

We don't want players "making things a bit more obvious". This is football behaviour.

i like the delusional hypocritical rugby planet you live on where being professional and highlighting infringement to the ref (as i suggest above) is incompatible with your demi-god McCaw constantly occupying the grey zone of law interpretation and getting away with whatever he can when he can.

my, my, my, how some people love a double standard.

the game is either professional or its not.

Nope. No double standard there.

McCaw is a manly mans manly man and he'd never dive or play act to milk a penalty. He even wore an eye gouge in the RWC final and got on with the art of winning.

Now *some* players would rip their own eye out afterwards to "make it slightly more obvious" to the referee.

Integrity. That's what it's all about. Think of the referee as the director of a play - McCaw aims to be a great actor even if the director is clueless and the play is awful.

that's your problem GE, you think the director's bad, when in reality it's McCaw who can't follow directions, stands in the wrong place on stage, and keeps nicking other people's lines.   



i think McCaw is awesome. Sometimes his awesomeness does allow him more latitude with the laws than other mere mortals, but hard to begrudge it.