Cheating

After all the furore following the recent aussie cricket 'tactics' and several discussions on this forum and others it got me to thinking; what is the line for everyone regarding bending or breaking the rules. I've said before if you're not breaking the rules hay are you doing on a rugby field?

Having said that perhaps a touch tongue in cheek is blood gate ever justifiable. Is the french use of head assessments? Is it merely down to the colour shirt you wear for some!?

No 7&1/2 wrote:After all the furore following the recent aussie cricket 'tactics' and several discussions on this forum and others it got me to thinking; what is the line for everyone regarding bending or breaking the rules. I've said before if you're not breaking the rules hay are you doing on a rugby field?

Having said that perhaps a touch tongue in cheek is blood gate ever justifiable. Is the french use of head assessments? Is it merely down to the colour shirt you wear for some!?

I tend to think that cheating is fine as long as it does not lead to injury. It's up to the ref to police the game and the players to play to the ref.

A good example is a certain Wales/England game. I had no problems with Adam Jones doing whatever in the scrum. I do have a problem with the hairdresser's husband's inability (or unwillingness) to police it

I would disagree - Jones cheating in the scrum cost Scotland a game -

Any sporting contest is staged according to set rules. You expect to compete according to those rules.

Not getting caught by the officials does not make it acceptable.

By that standard it is OK to use performance drugs if you don't get caught.

I think most people accept cheating to a degree. Standing deliberately offside is cheating but most would accept their team doing it, just not a team doing it against them.

There are degrees to it though, most rationalise things and some can justify the worst behaviour.

I saw a good tweet saying something along the lines of bending the rules of play and trying to get away with it is ok, but actually tampering with the equipment / physical cheating of any kind (doping / fake blood) is when it goes over the line

Everyone cheats...I guess its the level of cheating that matters.

And personal opinion probably comes in to play.

Rugby players (NZ are top class at this) push the limits of the laws. If the ref doesn't see it...excellent. Neil back was great at, as have been so many others.
I don't mind it...even though its cheating.

Roughing a cricket ball with sand paper is pretty bad, but im sure its not the first time its been done...the difference is they got caught. Im not a fan of this though and see it as worse than wonky scrummaging or being offside in rugby like McCaw, Back etc etc etc.

PED's (performance enhancing drugs) are also cheating yet im more intolerant to that. I think hefty bans should be dished out...lifetime in certain cases (Athletics etc)

But others may disagree...

Everyone does it on the rugby field. Anything goes if you can get away with it.

I think we all accept that we are happy with some bending of the rules. The bigger debate is where you draw a line.

For me that is anything that causes injury or is detrimental to health (e.g. keeping players on the pitch who should not be there). I can also understand the general discomfort with 'organised' cheating - i.e anything involving props or persons off the pitch.

I think the “anything goes” line is a bit childish – would anyone really condone gouging someone in the eye, or a head high no arms tackle? Rugby is a tough enough sport without the cheap shots – you expect to give and take a few hits, but within limits.

I think the position on drugs is equally a no no. Most of us don’t realise the damage we are doing to ourselves by taking the various banned substances – athletes have died or suffered significant issues as a result of stuffing illegal drugs down their neck. Should individuals be forced to take illegal drugs to allow themselves to compete with the willing drug cheats?

The grey area for me comes in with the ‘hand of Back’ episode in the 2002 Munster v Leicester Heineken Cup Final, or the All Black practice of standing offside at rucks blocking the scrum half making a pass. This is cheating, but if your player does it it is acceptable, but if the opposition do it it is illegal. This is the referees job to deal with and I think the rules of the game and the introduction of the TMO have to a large extent addressed this.

Looking at the recent 6 Nations was it cheating in the England v Scotland game that the Scottish players were not releasing the tackled player, were playing the ball when not supporting their body weight, putting their hands past the ball, coming in from the side, etc? According to Nigel Owens they were legal. Scrums are still a joke as I cannot think of any international referees who played in the forwards, let alone the front row.

People will always try and push the rules, but deliberate and organised attempts to break or get around them is cheating for me and needs to be stamped on. To this end, referees should watch recent games to see what “tactics” teams are employing and look to stop them.

I guess the closest thing to ball tampering would be "Deflategate" in the NFL. Although something similar is feasible in rugby, it's not something we've ever seen. The closest thing to that would be the 2011 Rugby World Cup ball fiasco with Wilkinson, but that was far less of an issue and, if Wilkinson is to be believed, only arose because of the poor quality of match balls.

For me the line depends on whether a referee would be expecting to pick it up. Hands in the ruck - he should be looking for that and policing that. Whether the air pressure in the ball is regular, whether a player's reported head injury or whether a player has been taken performance enhancing drugs should not be in a referee's regular remit.

The issue with cheating outside of the referee's regular remit is that it's not normally discovered or if a referee gets suspicious, these suspicions aren't usually confirmed) until the enquiry after the game. At that stage you can punish the perpetrators, but if your the cheated team there's not much you can do.

Yes, if an athlete has taken PEDs you can disqualify them and change any medal awards etc, but this doesn't often happen in team sports and even in athletics you've still robbed the person of the moment. I'm no sprinter, but I'd rather win the 100m Olympic gold on the night than 3 months later when the A and the B sample are back from the lab confirming that the person who beat me cheated.

On a team sport level, in the case of Deflategate you could reassign the points if it was a league game (as we often see with an unregistered player), but in the NFL this was a Championship game and in the end they just punished the people involved (similar to the ball tampering affair).

The fake head injury is potentially the worst one, as every questionable use of HIA will start to sow seeds of doubt in referee's minds. Imagine if an HIA was refused to a concussed player because the referee thought he was gaming the system, the player stayed on and took a further knock. Hopefully it would never go that far, but abuse of the system should be heavily punished if discovered to discourage it and let the referee get on with the refereeing of the actual game.

Cheating is fine until Wales do it back to you. And let us not forget the best cheats in the world in which we blueprint all our cheating on .

Crooked lineouts and feeds in scrums are the norm. This is bending the rules every game.

The ref should be policing them more but don't. It makes it harder to compete on opposition ball.

Would actually mean hookers have to improve their core basics.

Unfortunately it's the ref that decides which is the most important aspect of a game - whether it's a scrum or breakdown - not the players.

Playing the ref is an integral part of rugby. England were hopeless at this in the 6 nations, giving away penalty after penalty.


The opposition aren't in the wrong by getting away with more, England just need to up their savviness in this area.



The consistency of the refereeing and keeping the quality high I think is the most important thing.


Both Maradona and Suarez cheating in football are so bad because their team won thanks to it and both were so blatant.


Against Italy, Finn Russell got away with a deliberate knockdown which arguably cost Italy the match.

Is Russell a cheat? Many would say no - he's done what many players from various clubs and nationalities have done.

The fault lies with the ref. Italy were hard done by but that's not Scotland's fault but the ref's.

Interesting view that responsibility lies with the guy paid to spot infringements rather than the guys paid to infringe!does that expand to blood gate et al for you or purely on the pitch matters?

Well of course it does. If a ref starts penalising crooked throws and lineouts they'll likely stop or at least reduce it.

Harsher penalties like more sin bins would clean things up. There has to be more clarity - especially at the breakdown. Too much inconsistency.

Well bloodgate was dealt with.

You are talking about on pitch matters, aren't you?


Rob Kearney probably knew he knocked on vs England but it was the ref and TMO responsibility to chalk off the try not the player.


Players are more likely to cheat if not policed sufficiently.

I was just after a general view. From blocking to drug use and everything in between.

Well it can also come down to what you believe is "fair" and playing within the rules.

The salary cap is of course a grey area.

Is it fair that some countries have no salary cap? Some have higher than others? Etc?

Is it fair that some teams are at full strength during the IW and others aren't?

You might say but the IW isn't breaking the rules but the point is -

are the rules fair in the first place? We have a situation where certain players are being overworked.

You might say it doesn't matter because that's what you sign up for.

It doesn't change that certain rules can favour one team over another.


Look at last season, Exeter were much fresher for the AP playoffs.

It depends if you like the status quo or would want change?

Well.in regards cheating when bath and saracens cheated I didn't like it at all. You're gaining a huge advantage from.something like that which can have ripples for years.

The international window. Well its not cheating and to some extent that is negated through the playoffs. You do get the chance to turn that league position around when your players should be available. It's an area when player safety etc comes up though could be reviewed.

Aussie’s cheating in the scrum under Eddie Jones was a p1ss take. Who remembers that debacle?

People were incensed!!!

They cheated and knew they were cheating and denied it!

Aussies eh

Rinse and repeat, lol

no 7 & 1/2

Please don't wind me up - there's no factual evidence of guilt- stop saying things as if they are fact when they are not.

Plus as I said you have a situation of no caps and a higher cap so the playing field in Europe isn't the same anyway.

There's no global agreed salary cap.

The IW is arguably an unfair advantage for teams who have no commitments.

It's not breaking the rules no but it's a clear advantage. Don't pretend the IW isn't a huge advantage.

Playing less games, having more rest time than your opponents is also a huge advantage.

It can depend on whether you are happy with the rules or not.

Is it fair when one team has a 5 day turn around and another has a 7 day turnaround?

Just because something is in the rules doesn't make it right.

Yes but we're talking breaking the rules on this thread and where the line is. I'm still waiting for that clarification over baths and saracens cheating coming out. We're waiting until the wc was over to not damage the reputation aren't we? Don't raise it if you don't want to talk about it!

Till evidence appears we can only speculate.

You talk about a line but it's also debatable where the line should be.

It is debatable what the rules should be.

Also it's about consistency - if you don't punish one team for allegedly breaking the rules, it's difficult to justify punishing others for the same offence unless you set a precedence.

When should the results be coming out by the way beshocked?

beshocked wrote:Till evidence appears we can only speculate.

You talk about a line but it's also debatable where the line should be.

It is debatable what the rules should be.

Also it's about consistency - if you don't punish one team for allegedly breaking the rules, it's difficult to justify punishing others for the same offence unless you set a precedence.

Not for governing bodies. They set what is acceptable behaviour and where the line should go. Anything that breaks competition rules or game laws is over that line. You can say it's debatable what the rules should be, but once they're set then all debate is removed.

The point of this thread, to my mind, is what level of cheating do we tolerate? Not rolling away for an extra second, probably fine. Bloodgate, probably not fine. But where do we as fans draw our line?

You may personally deem salary cap breaches acceptable, but they certainly fall foul of a lot of the criteria mentioned on here as the worst behaviour; premeditated, deliberate, attempts to conceal.

Talking about Exeter winning the Premiership because their players were fresher, while potentially true, is irrelevant to the discussion. They haven't cheated or broken any rules to maintain fresher players.

robbo277 wrote:

beshocked wrote:Till evidence appears we can only speculate.

You talk about a line but it's also debatable where the line should be.

It is debatable what the rules should be.

Also it's about consistency - if you don't punish one team for allegedly breaking the rules, it's difficult to justify punishing others for the same offence unless you set a precedence.

Not for governing bodies. They set what is acceptable behaviour and where the line should go. Anything that breaks competition rules or game laws is over that line. You can say it's debatable what the rules should be, but once they're set then all debate is removed.

The point of this thread, to my mind, is what level of cheating do we tolerate? Not rolling away for an extra second, probably fine. Bloodgate, probably not fine. But where do we as fans draw our line?

You may personally deem salary cap breaches acceptable, but they certainly fall foul of a lot of the criteria mentioned on here as the worst behaviour; premeditated, deliberate, attempts to conceal.

Talking about Exeter winning the Premiership because their players were fresher, while potentially true, is irrelevant to the discussion. They haven't cheated or broken any rules to maintain fresher players.

It's not irrelevant when talking about level playing field and fairness.... or is it just salary caps which are completely different throughout Europe the most important thing?

True no rules have been broken but they are still given a significant advantage.

In rugby it's as if every country adheres to the same rules when it comes to the salary cap - some have none.

Some rules are flawed in the first place.

Just because something is a rule/law it doesn't make it right or fair.

My point is it also comes down to what advantages are deemed acceptable.

Superior rest and international windows are seen as acceptable advantages - they don't break any current rules but they do favour teams over another.

Injuries can't be controlled - IW and superior rest can.

So.for you beshocked the line is where you think the rules are unfair. The salary cap is higher in France which justifies bath and saracens. Exeter benefitted from being fresher so those rules suck. It comes down to th colour of the shirt a little with you despite saracens players being mean.

Some countries have higher and lower income tax rates compared to the UK. I suppose its fine if I just pay the amount of tax that would be due in Timbuktu rather than the tax due in the UK?

I'm sure HMRC will be more than satisfied

We play by the rules in our own country, the same applies to rugby - there is no grey area other than the one Nigel and Bruce created when using their money to bully the rest

The french are the biggest concern re cheating for me. To me they are cheating with the head protocols but no one can prove it. You shouldn't be messing with the Trust around a system providing player safety. Similar to drugs where health can be put at risk.

no 7 & 1/2 well yes I think the whole system is flawed with players being overworked - a situation where in France you have a much higher cap and in Ireland none.

You have aviva premiership games heavily overlapping with IW.

You talk about rules and the system but I think the whole system needs looking at.


Bambam not quite sure you can say Timbuktu is comparable to the UK though.

In rugby terms the French and Irish are much more so.

Rules can be changed. Some rules are flawed.


A deeper, bigger squad is needed with the higher attrition rate.

That would stop bath and saracens cheating..So. in a way a perfect solution! Are you angry concerned etc that the review of the salary cap cheating wasn't releases or done in a transparent way?

All cheating is wrong. Of course. It's cheating. There is not, or should not be, an acceptable form of cheating by players or management. The only discussion should be how to stop it and the simple is, "You can't"

beshocked wrote:

Bambam not quite sure you can say Timbuktu is comparable to the UK though.

In rugby terms the French and Irish are much more so.

Rules can be changed.  Some rules are flawed.

A quite astonishing argument

I work in the UK, in a field where some of the main competition comes from Luxembourg. Should my employer be able to pay Luxembourg's corporation tax rate to HMRC, or should be they paying the UK tax?

Let me know, as I'm sure I'd be rewarded with a promotion if I can save my employer c.15% of the tax they pay thanks to the advice of a biased Saracens "fan" on the internet

For me pushing the boundaries at ruck and so on is fine. the hand of Back and Jones conning of refs in the scrum is not.

BamBam wrote:

beshocked wrote:

Bambam not quite sure you can say Timbuktu is comparable to the UK though.

In rugby terms the French and Irish are much more so.

Rules can be changed.  Some rules are flawed.

A quite astonishing argument

I work in the UK, in a field where some of the main competition comes from Luxembourg. Should my employer be able to pay Luxembourg's corporation tax rate to HMRC, or should be they paying the UK tax?

Let me know, as I'm sure I'd be rewarded with a promotion if I can save my employer c.15% of the tax they pay thanks to the advice of a biased Saracens "fan" on the internet

None of what you said is relevant to rugby.

I know you find it very difficult to talk about rugby on a rugby forum but please try.

Thoughts in the transparency of results for baths and saracens cheating beshocked? Angry or pleased?

You've intrigued me tj! Why a view that rucks are ok to cheat but not scrum? Both are the normal domain of acceptable behaviour normally.

beshocked wrote:

BamBam wrote:

beshocked wrote:

Bambam not quite sure you can say Timbuktu is comparable to the UK though.

In rugby terms the French and Irish are much more so.

Rules can be changed.  Some rules are flawed.

A quite astonishing argument

I work in the UK, in a field where some of the main competition comes from Luxembourg. Should my employer be able to pay Luxembourg's corporation tax rate to HMRC, or should be they paying the UK tax?

Let me know, as I'm sure I'd be rewarded with a promotion if I can save my employer c.15% of the tax they pay thanks to the advice of a biased Saracens "fan" on the internet

None of what you said is relevant to rugby.

I know you find it very difficult to talk about rugby on a rugby forum but please try.

Your bias blinds you - continue dribbling your nonsense while in a permanently bewildered state

Without getting too complacent, Rugby is lilly white compared to Australian cricket ( I Should say a handful of Australian cricket players).

Further, I'm pretty sure that the average Rugby player knows the difference between a piece of Sandpaper and a piece of tape.

Ah the child like purity,what a crock of s***,England cricketers in the 50`s spinners growing finger nails.
So they could pick the seam,fastbowlers using brylcreem to polish the ball,Tony Locks fast ball was
faster than Frank Tyson because it was a chuck.The analyst after every match is the most important
man.
The Blitz defence only works if your offside,competing in the lineout is impossible unless your closing
the gap or jumping across.
As to the Scrum the front row mafia rule there,if Poite,Pepyer.or Barnes are concerned endless penalties
or resets.All you can hope for there consistent for both sides.
Face it every team cheats if you win great if you don`t well that`s the breaks don`t blame the Ref.

So you'd go down the line of anything goes then emack. Drugs. Blood cheats. Wage caps etc?

NO ,nor gouging,deliberately collapsing scrums etc.BUT recognizing that ALL teams do it
instead of saying were whiter than white.

Don't think anyone has gone with that. So you're saying the opposite. No cheating is ok but everyone does it.

I think he is saying "bad cheating" - drugs, gouging, deliberately collapsing scrums - is wrong, but putting the ball into the scrum crooked, putting a hand into a ruck, etc is ok ish because everyone else does it. Rugby is not a black and white game - much depends on the interpretation of the referee - so we all push the boundaries. That said, taking sand paper onto a cricket field is clearly cheating.

NO ,nor gouging,deliberately collapsing scrums etc.BUT recognizing that ALL teams do it
instead of saying were whiter than white.
.
Sorry but I am struggling to see your point.  You don't agree with cheating - gouging, deliberate collapsing scrums - but we all do it so it is ok.  ??? No team is whiter than white, but the point of the question was is there a line that it is not acceptable to step over.  I think putting the ball into the scrum crooked is a foul, but the referee can easily pick it up and penalise it - so to me not cheating.  Stamping on someone's ankle hoping the referee does not see it is cheating.  Adam Jones collapsing every other scrum he was in in the hope he would get  50% of the penalties is cheating. I think the best description is - when you see it and it looks like cheating, then it probably is.

Any front row not 'cheating' isn't doing his job properly.

Stonker of a discussion!

For me there are two main factors that determine this one.

1. Consistency
2. Premeditation

Consistency
For this you can look at squint put ins at the scrum. So long as the ref is consistent with the application of the laws then I don't care if a ball is put in straight or not. What he can't do though is ping one team and not the other. I know there is an argument that feeds should be straight as some teams use their scrum as an attacking weapon rather than as a way to restart the game, but the scrums can often be that much of a mess, I'd rather we just got on with playing the game.

Premeditation
You can tell if a player or team is deliberately trying to cheat or if they've been coached to be naughty. I'm talking loseheads constantly pulling down a scrum or centres constantly offside in a blitz defense. If a player doesn't roll on one occasion because he's being held in a bit or if he's knackered, then fair do. But if he's never rolling away. Nope, not acceptable.

We've all done it. We've all tried to pick up a ball in a ruck when we shouldn't. We've all gone for that "intercept" that we really didn't have much chance of getting to. Technically these are all law infringements and its part of the game.

Ever wonder why rugby have laws instead of rules? Because laws are fluid things that are open to interpretation and the penalty for breaking a law is dependent of factors.

It's the one reason why I don't get into reffing. Everyone has a different opinion on something!!!

In rugby we play the ref

tigertattie wrote:Stonker of a discussion!

For me there are two main factors that determine this one.

1. Consistency
2. Premeditation

Consistency
For this you can look at squint put ins at the scrum. So long as the ref is consistent with the application of the laws then I don't care if a ball is put in straight or not.  What he can't do though is ping one team and not the other. I know there is an argument that feeds should be straight as some teams use their scrum as an attacking weapon rather than as a way to restart the game, but the scrums can often be that much of a mess, I'd rather we just got on with playing the game.

Premeditation
You can tell if a player or team is deliberately trying to cheat or if they've been coached to be naughty. I'm talking loseheads constantly pulling down a scrum or centres constantly offside in a blitz defense. If a player doesn't roll on one occasion because he's being held in a bit or if he's knackered, then fair do. But if he's never rolling away. Nope, not acceptable.

We've all done it. We've all tried to pick up a ball in a ruck when we shouldn't. We've all gone for that "intercept" that we really didn't have much chance of getting to. Technically these are all law infringements and its part of the game.

Ever wonder why rugby have laws instead of rules? Because laws are fluid things that are open to interpretation and the penalty for breaking a law is dependent of factors.

It's the one reason why I don't get into reffing. Everyone has a different opinion on something!!!

Surely a scrum-half who always puts the ball in squint has premeditated that plan? Does that make it worse, even if the referee is consistently allowing it?

You can tell teams when you're playing which teams are coached to kill the ball, I agree. But I don't really mind that so much. It's basically a gamble and it's up to the referee to enforce the laws.

Off the ball stuff (although at elite level nothing is truly behind the referee's back), things that can hurt or things the referee can have no hope of picking up on (e.g. drugs cheats) are always going to be worse than a deliberate flouting of one of the rules under the referees nose.

I'd say one thing that you've touched on there would be that I would find cheating by a referee (by way of deliberately inconsistent treatment of the offences by each team) to be worse than almost any form of cheating by a player (provided he wasn't going out to maim someone).

We're taught from a young age to respect the referee and that his decision is final. Referee's aren't perfect but you should always be able to rely on them being impartial and as long as you believe that you can and should respect them. Anything that puts doubt over that fundamental belief in a referee's impartiality could erode respect for every referee in the game, if it was high-profile enough.

Case in point, this Romanian referee in the Spain game. If it is proved that he behaved improperly, I would be calling for a lifetime ban.

nlpnlp wrote:Looking at the recent 6 Nations was it cheating in the England v Scotland game that the Scottish players were not releasing the tackled player, were playing the ball when not supporting their body weight, putting their hands past the ball, coming in from the side, etc?  According to Nigel Owens they were legal.

The comment above is the very definition of looking through rose tinted glasses.

Until recently a RFU Scrum forum concluded that assuming a correctly engaged scrum,concluded it was
physically impossible.To feed square so the squint feed was sort of ignored many hookersactually had
to learn to rake the ball.