Apologies if this has already been asked, but I'm too lazy to read 18 pages. Why don't we insist on taller posts? In RU (for obvious reasons) they're bloomin' massive and I remember ones of similar height in RL, at least much of the time.

To me it looked a clear 1 point from 1 view, and not so clear from the other (the other being from the same side the ref was viewing). Horrible call for the ref to have to make. He may have got it wrong, but he's got a pretty good excuse if so.

Give over you worm. A one eyed supporter ? It was a penalty all day long to Saints and the only reason this is up for debate is because the ref took to long making the decision and the linesman gives it. Jermaine is on top of Walsh claiming for the knock on (which is holding down).

The only major decision he got wrong was the Brough drop goal.

Maybe something to do RL being played on soccer grounds. It seems the shared stadiums have smaller posts. Probably for ease of building, dismantling and storage.

Given this thread, I dont think there were 7,150 supporters who thought it were in. Even if it were unanimous, the lack of understanding of the rules shown in this thread would still cast doubt over the decision!

With technology these days the VCR should be able to review and be 100% sure.

Can anyone say conclusively whether it's true if the ball goes over the post that it's counted as in?
Because I can't seem to see anything in the rules that says this.

After all the debate, I decided to go looking for the rules.

Firstly,



This is pretty well known. The more important ruling comes from the general rules of kicking a goal (which for the purposes of definition covers both goals and drop goals)



Highlighted the important bit ...

The first one is a reference to the kick not being ruled out for going too high and being ruled out for going over the height of the post.

The second one refers to the whole ball going over the cross bar, not the posts. i.e it being blown back or bouncing off the crossbar and back out, and is irrelevant in this context.

Any use of camera angles sited in the middle of the posts in fatally flawed. Camera angles are curved, to give as wide an angle as possible. The camera referred to in the pictures posted above are a few yards to the left of the post concerned and so can give a false positive (or negative). The only camera angle you could use would be one directly behind the actual post, not in the middle of the two.

To give an analogy, imagine trying to decide if a football has crossed the goal line using a camera that looked along the six-yard box. You'd never get right if the ball was in the air. It's the same here.

The only person in line with the actual post, and looking up, was Bentham.

How about 5,566 supporters instead?

your analogy is a judgment of depth, this isnt a judgement of depth. In your analogy you would struggle to see whether it crossed the line, but it would be very very easy to see if it went between the posts.

In this case there is no dispute that it is high enough to go over the crossbar, but whether it went between the posts. we can see that it did.

The position of the ball in relation to the posts will be different from a camera situated a few yards left of the post than from a camera directly in line, and so doesn't give a true reflection. Hence why the view was different from the other end, as it is further away and so the angle of difference is lessened.

It would also affect the impression as to when the ball crossed the posts, which is crucial if a ball is curving, and so it is also a question of depth.

The easiest way to do it would be to have lasers that point straight up the posts and so can detect if the posts are breached (not all laser beams have to be coloured). I'm not sure how planes would react to that, but that is the easiest and cheapest way.

that angle from behind cannot have made a kick that missed, never cross the line of the post. The ball was kicked inside the post, and travelled on a trajectory inside the post never crossing the line of the post.

Had it been kicked outside the post and come in, the angle would cause difficulty in knowing when the ball crossed the line of the post, before or after the try line. Had it been kicked inside the posts and gone out the same issue would have arisen. But that question of depth of vision is not an issue for a ball which never crossed the line of the post.

Had the ball missed, whatever angle it is view from, the post would need to be on the inside (in that angle as we are looking at it, the left hand side) it never is.

Like the different camera angles, I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree. Someone could post pictures from the other end and an entirely different conclusion would be reached.

One thing is for certain: Bentham was in a perfect position to judge, in line with that post and looking up. Ian Smith comes up with some bizarre video decisions at the best of times. Can you imagine him trying to pick the bones out of that?

In isolation a picutre could be misleading. Within that video it cannot.

considering the clusterwhoopsie he and ganson made of managing to disallow a clear try for saints a few weeks back, i wouldnt trust Ian Smith to correctly find his shoelaces.

Eh?
Where does it say that?

You know a Ref's had a shocker when he runs off the pitch with a safety escort !!

Awful performance from Bentham, just awful !

It says it in the rules. The first one makes no mention of what should happen if it goes over the posts, simply that there is no height limit on them, they are inifinite. It would be quite possibly the most insane rule in all sports if the referee was supposed to guess what would happen if an oblique spheroid of indeterminate speed and rotation bounced of an imaginary cylinder of indeterminate rigidity. It would be a ridiculous rule. Even RL cannot have such a crazy rule, and even RL, if they did for some mental reason have such a crazy rule would have clear provision for it rather than a tenuous inference.

Hitting the post doesnt mean that the ball didnt go in, nor did it mean it did go in, that outcome has yet to be decided at the point of hitting the post. what happens next decideds that. Nowhere does it say we must assume the ball bounces back should any part of it hit this imaginary post. It provides no further clarification whatsoever.

The 2nd part doesnt even mention the posts.

Dang, camera angles and what not, we are'nt talking faked moon landings, I want someone to tell me why the video-refs called a ball that went backwards a 'knock-on', dissallowing a perfectly good try!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Lets not go to the draw No 6 or No 9.....

London being able to create a Ghost Team to fulfil fixtures...

An investing Club Owner fined, for having a different opinion than the RFL....

This game is a 'kin shambles......

Bentham's performance was on TV, live on TV, and the Video refs compund his idiocy by being more idiotic!!.......

We ARE doomed!

Maybe, just maybe, he had the best view of everyone in the ground and therefore was confident to not give the field goal. Just because players and fans think it's over doesn't mean he has to bow down to their thoughts and give the goal. Only 1 opinion matters here and it's the referee's. The games over and it's time to move on. Maybe Huddersfield should invest in taller posts, then we'd know for sure.

That was arguably worse than the drop goal decision. At least Bentham had the excuse of making a split second decision. I was utterly gobsmacked to hear Smith say "Yeah he's definitely lost it." Losing the ball is not in itself a knock on, you prat Smith, it must go forwards! Add to that the fact it went backwards of a Saints player the mind really does boggle!

I'm sorry, but no, that's simply incorrect. To go over the crossbar the ball HAS to go between the posts. The crossbar isnt infinitely long horizontally. The rules don't even mention the posts due to this fact. Anything less that the complete ball going BETWEEN the sticks (regardless of height assuming above the cross bar) - aka, over the posts isn't a goal, or drop goal.

If the ball was kicked from the left of the posts and appears, from behind the posts, to go between the sticks, then I don't see how it's physically possible to have gone wide. The ball must have travelled from left to right (from the kicker's perspective) in order to appear in between the posts to the camera behind the posts so it physically must have gone between them.

That begs the question why they don't simply state that the ball must go in between the posts, since they have gone to the trouble of stating that the posts extend infinitely upwards. I wonder whether the crossbar is assumed to extend the full width of the structure.