That will be a week on Thursday when we play Leeds. Sinfield will kick through and Ryan Hall will collect the ball while being offside, drop it over the line, pick it up and put it on the dead ball line. Childs will refer the try up to the VR to Steve Ganson. He will look at it 24 times before awarding the try. He will then say after the match that he got the decision wrong and was actually watching footage of a game almost 20 years ago between Oldham and Sheffield. Jon Sharp will then come out and say we got it wrong and the Refs want to be transparent while Steve Ganson takes a couple of weeks off fully paid. The incident will then swept under the carpet until the next time Hull KR are on sky

In your opinion, but only because you can't look at them with an open mind
*of
Oh, so you did understand. You were just being ‘sarky’. Interesting. You may say with no pressure on it almost the entire length of the ball cannot be touching the ground. Yet you yourself have posted a picture of it. That, at least is indisputable.

It is both on, and over the line. It is both on and over the line by a large margin. And when we compare that with your ball at rest, we can see the margin it is both on and over the line is due to the size and shape of the ball, not the deformation of it, stemming from the pressure being applied to it.

Contact with the ground is contact with the ground. It is the action of the ball touching the ground. If you want to start getting to smaller and smaller measurements of it, go ahead, but our VR’s don’t need a degree in quantum physics because we have provision within the rules for it. Simultaneous contact is no try.

In your opinion, but only because you can't look at it with an open mind.
As your first picture shows, the area touching the floor is relatively large, too large for that to be true.
It seems your memory differs from the pictures you provided. Which is………..strange.
So a measurement of time so small we can’t observe it eh? Another way of saying that would be, the contact was simultaneous.
I understand the difference. You are guessing.

I think your evidence proved it quite well for me.

They should bring DRS into rugby league, that would surely clear up and end any confusion.

Doesn't matter. You'd have to assume that the surface is flat, unless you are saying that what looks a valid try is to be ruled out because the outer part of the ball might have hit some raised mound of soil first.


I'm not! I believe it was a fair decision and even if it could be somehow proved "no try" it certainly doesn't deserve the ref bagging it produced from (tbf) a few. I think explaining stuff like this and discussing it with reasonable people is good fun and that's about it. And after pages of explanations, a mere statement that it "was obviously thw rong decision" is an irrelevance, that's just a mere bald statement of your opinion. To which you're entitled, but not to claim it as some self-evident truth.


I would!


and I dare say it wouldn't, but I'm only interested in whether it was a correct, or supportable, decision, not whether it would or wouldn't be given.


It is a weakness of yours to keep claiming universal support ("everyone can see that..."icon_wink.gif, bluster does not advance your case. If everyone can see that, then why can't I, and why couldn't James Child? That's two, just for starters.

The last in my series of images with respect clearly shows that Charnley can't have done this. Unless the ball has hit the touchline first, then somehow slid horizontally 20cm or so away from touch.

Sarky? Nope. So now you’re saying that a ball in the act of being forcefully grounded at speed has no forces acting on it. That is with respect ridiculous.


As I keep having to repeat, being “over” the line” is not the point. Is it TOUCHING the line is the preliminary point. If yes, then we move on to the next poiunt, which would be: did that part of the ball touch the line BEFORE any part was grounded in play.


Which is of course MY point – but not, seemingly, yours. As I now understand your position, the initial contact doesn’t count. You think we have to wait until a large part of the ball is in contact with the grassy surface, for some reason. You think the initial contact can be ignored, and if the ball is being pressed to the ground, you think that we let play go on, despite the initial contact, until the ball is deformed so much that eventually part of it touched the line. I suppose that is where we’ll have to disagree. My firm view is that the initial contact is the ONLY relevant moment, what happens after that doesn’t count.



Another non sequitur, and your argument isn’t helped by the device of childish parroting. Can’t you have a discussion without resorting to this?


Do you mean my LAST picture? I suggest you repost it so we know what you are on about.


No, it doesn’t. The first image in my post containing the images is of a number of RL balls on the ground together, viewed from different angles.


As a matter of pure common sense, if the critical moment is between frames, nobody can see it in a frame. So we have to make deductions based on the preceding and following images. It seems, with respect, ludicrous to suggest that BECAUSE we can’t see the moment of grounding, it was “simultaneous”. Yet another non sequitur.


Only if your definition of “guessing” is not the one in standard use.

You’re right, it would be ridiculous. That’s why I didn’t say anything even approaching something like that. With respect. Read it again.

Well unless it is magic, the pictures quite obviously show it is both on and over the line. It is both on and over the live by a large margin.

no it isnt. your point is the quite ludicrous and obviously false point, that the area of the ball which touches the ground initially is such a small area that that area was in the field of play whereas the rest of the ball for a fleeting moment was hanging in the air not touching anything then the pressure of the hand on the ball squashed it meaning that the only frames we see are ones where none of the ball touches the floor, and ones where the ball is touching the the line, over the line and in the in-goal area. You dont have anything to prove this because this moment would be such a small amount of time but you would like us to believe it is true. and you have drawn a picture. Well then you need to re-read what i have written. No i dont. You can just read what i actually put. Making up my argument for me might be fun for you to argue against, but i dont need to be here for it. You could do this on your own. nope.Nope. Nope Well that was a lovely straw man. He had a hat an everything.

You are funny.

no, i meant FIRST picture. I'll explain it a little clearer for you. Your first picture shows a ball at rest. It shows a ball with no outside forces acting upon it. It shows a ball not deformed by pressure applied to it. Not pushed in to the ground but just resting on the ground. It shows the majority of the length of the ball touching the ground. It shows that if you place a ball down and don’t push it in to the ground don’t deform it, don’t act upon it, a large proportion of the length of the ball will be in contact with the ground. It shows the minimum amount, that a ball at that angle, can be in contact with the ground unless an outside force acts upon it (other than the mounds and divots you have already told us we ignore).
yet you seem to think that only a very small amount of the ball is on the floor. Its very strange.
If the moment is that small it falls in between frames we don’t just make a guess at what happened in between those frames, if the moment was so small that it falls in between frames we have provision for it, simultaneous contact is no try. The reason why simultaneous contact is no try, the whole reason it is in the rules is to avoid a referee having to guess what happened in a moment so infinitesimal that it was the difference between a ball touching the ground and the ball expanding on impact, a moment so small that a hd camera couldn’t capture it, a moment so small there is no evidence to prove it ever existed. To avoid this nonsense.

If your evidence is a frame that doesn’t exist from an angle that we didn’t have then you are guessing.

But I do. It is the image that i posted where the ball is viewed from the side, and is just behind the corner flag.


Yes. This image was posted to counter your argument that rugby balls are some funny shape, not essentially an ovoid, but with flattish panels. The end on ball is clearly, as near as makes no difference, rounded, not as you suggest.


1. No it doesn't. The ball is horizontal, and at rest. As such, only a spot at the bottom middle of the ball is resting on the ground. The size of that spot is determined by the force of gravity, balanced by the tension of the inflated ball, but it's not a big area.

2. The rest of the ball cannot be touching the ground. It MUST be curving up away from the ground.

3. The rest of the "length of the ball", i.e. outside the spot that is resting on the ground, may be touching the GRASS, and the area of ball which is touching the GRASS will be much bigger than the spot which is touching the ground. (For this purpose, whilst obviously none of the ball is likely to be touching bare earth, the spot that is resting on the ground will only be separated from the ground by the width of blades of flattened grass so that would to me count as the same thing).

4. How much of the ball will be in contact with the grass obviously depends entirely on how long the grass is. If it is cut to the extreme amount of a putting green then not much. If the grass is 6" long then maybe the full length.

If I follow your argument, you are saying that, if to left of centre of the ball, there was a line whitewashed in the grass, and if part of the ball is touching that whitewashed grass, then it is in touch. Yes?

So the contact between ball and whitewash, even if the ball is not resting on the line, "counts" as in touch?

Why, then, did not the earlier contact between green grass and ball "count" to complete the grounding? You can't have it both ways!


I think it's a simple point, but as you don't seem to grasp it yet, another diagram:



A: Is "A" a try? Lots of the ball is contacting lots of the grass, but there's still a short vertical distance left to travel before the ball can drop no further.

If "A" is not a try, then the loads of contact of loads of the ball with loads of grass doesn't count. Can we agree that?

So to be a try, it would have to complete downward travel, as in B. Right? If yes, we need the ball to reach the solid bit.

OK. So now all you have to do is explain to me why, if "A" is NOT a try, nevertheless "C" is in touch. I'd say that would be illogical.

Are you debating the Charnley try still? Because the angle of the ball is not like your MS Paint drawing. It's such that it's touching the sideline at every point of downward pressure.

Am I missing something here?
The ball touches the try line and the corner post.
The post prevents it from touching the touch in goal line.
The corner post no longer counts as touch in goal so ......
T-R-Y !!!

Are you trying to say that Childs actually thought about the physics of the shape of the ball vs its centre of gravity vs the angle of the ball vs downward pressure? If so then you are crediting him with having not the brains of a clown but the brains of a physicist. If it is the latter option then we aren't paying them enough and you my friend have the first option.

Oh and btw the ball in the 2nd diagram is physically further away from the line then the other 2 diagrams.

the one which doesnt show the ball on the ground?
It shows the majority of the length of the ball touching the ground.

and the angle of the ball, and the level of curvature on the ball.
if it was a different shape to what it is and what the picture shows.
Grass is the ground. Nowhere in the rules does it differentiate between grass and ground. In fact, (and in another brilliant example of you destroying your own argument) the 'line' being discussed inst a line on the ground but painted grass. So if you admit that the ball touches the ground in the in-goal area at the same time as it is touching the grass outside the in-goal area (including the touchline) then the decision is no try.

grass = ground. Thats why we paint grass and not ground.

im saying you can quite clearly see ball touch whitewashed grass. That is touch.

contact with the touchline is touch.

because there isnt some magical in spot on the ball which touches the grass in goal area where the ball isnt touching grass elsewhere and if you are no trying to differentiate the time between a couple of milimetres of grass being touched and then bending, you have gone into the realms of simultaneous.

That is a lovely drawing, but its not the shape of a rugby ball, it isn’t how an RL behaves under pressure, and most obviously it is a completely different situation to the Charnley incident where the ball is running parallel rather than perpendicular.

Either way, as you have started your usual tactics of trying to put peoples arguments in the terms you wanted rather than as they have put, as well as editing their posts so you only respond to the arguments you believe you can refute. Ill leave you to your drawings. They are very nice and you should get them up on the fridge.

Guess who has got promoted to Referee for this week's Wigan game ??

With the other one taking his role in the video van !!!

Yes you clearly are.
The ball touched the dead ball line and the tryline.

That's pretty unbelievable he's been given the Wigan game tbh.

I still look forward to his explanation for awarding the try on twitter later....

Or perhaps the brains of a primary school child. Which apparently are very rare.

If FA hasn't put any doubt into anyone's mind, well, I'm lost as to how that is.

This i you spectacularly missing a point I felt I'd maybe OVER-laboured. Clearly I should have tried harder. At the risk of repetition ad nauseam, NO. Because then you would be "counting" the contact with whitewashed grass, yet IGNORING the (obviously prior) contact with plain green grass.


And I'm the pedant? The points and the arguments are exactly the same whichever angle the ball is at. As well you know.


Heheh, you can't deal with argument and so off you go to the refuge of [iad hominem[/i. Stick to the discussion.


Wrong. I don't have to reply to every word you write nor would it be usual to do so. As it is, I tend to reply to much more of your posts than most people would. There is no "argument" made by you that I "believe I cannot refute". If there was, I would 100% say so, and congratulate you. As it is, I've refuted them all, already. You just wouldn't listen.

It isn't unbelievable at all.
It just proves the point that the ref's feel that they are untouchable.

They have no morals, they have no scruples and they just don't care.

I don't remember trying to say any of those things, oddly enough.



Ps he's called "Child" not "Childs".


That's rather obviously because they are three discrete illustrations, not a friggin video sequence

probably the only thing you have got right.

You want to pretend that from that photo there is proof that a spot on the ball managed to somehow touch the ground in the field of play whilst hovering fractions of fractions of fractions of a millimetre above the whitewash and not touching. I think your being ridiculous.

I think If we were to follow your idiocy to its conclusion we could quite easily argue that the actual existence of the whitewash raises the height of the grass above the height of the grass in the in-goal area by a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a millimetre hence, touch due to touching the whitewash painted on the grass an infinitesimal amount of time before touching the grass. The time it takes to travel the depth of a lick of paint.

But that would be stupid. As stupid as what you are doing which is not only trying to include the time it takes to bend a blade of grass as a meaningful issue in a game of rugby league, but trying to measure and trying to judge which blade of grass was bent first by from a frame of film taken after the event.

I think if you have a provision in the rules which mentions simultaneous contact, you use it. You think we should try and work out which blade of grass was the first to be touched by a series of frames and our best guess at what went on in between them.

No, not "proof". More reason to give the try than not is how I would put it.


Oooh, more insults. I'm really hurt. No, I am.


Most people would expect driving a line painting machine along the grass to paint a line, would bend the grass downwards so generally it might be a fraction below, not above, the adjacent grass if anything.


Oooooh, "stupid", now. Please stop this hurtful abuse, it is really upsetting me

- Seriously, do you think this is helping your case?


Nope, not doing any such, just saying that I think the evidence suggests the ball was grounded not in touch but in play. It doesn't matter which depth you choose, the outermost tips of the longest grass, or the solid ground at the bottom of the grass, the LOWEST POINT of the curved surface of the ball will ALWAYS beat the rest of the ball into contact with it. Because it is lower. So closer to the ground.


Nope, we just need to work out as best we can where the ball first made contact. That's really all there is to it. It could only be simultaneous, though, if the point of contact was exactly on the dividing line between the touch line and the pitch. And I don't think ANYONE is arguing that. Certainly no image I've seen shows or even suggests that.

Do feel free to hurl some more insults.

Let me try this a different way, rather than descend in to your weird quantum refereeing of RL (or guessing as it is also known) let me ask you a question.

The rules in RL have provision for ‘simultaneous contact’ that being that the ball touches the in-goal area and the touchline at the same-time. Considering you have got to the point of speculating that a spot on the ball may have touched a blade of green grass, before the bend of that grass put it into contact with the whitewash (though we have no proof of this, simply its possibility, which is highly doubtful from the pictures we have, but not entirely disproved because there may exist pictures that we don’t have, which to be fair is an argument which could be used to argue absolutely anything), if not in this instance is it judged ‘simultaneous’ under what circumstance would that rule come in to play?

Is there a smaller period of time than the initial bend of a blade of grass as a ball is put down on it that we are waiting for before we use that provision?

This will be a nightmare for judging if a kick has gone out on the full

Bring back Robin Whitfield at least you can expect controversy with him. Remember him sending off Hanley for talking to him even though as captain he was allowed.

Oooh, more cutting sarcasm. "Quantum refereeing"? What a very curious thing to introduce. What's that, then?

Me, I'm just arguing that the ball was first grounded in play, so a try; or at the very least, not enough evidence it WASN'T so grounded, so no reason to disallow a try.


Fire away.

Er, where there was simultaneous contact.


I already answered this, though. If the ball is put down 50/50 on the margin of line and in-goal then that would be simultaneous. Here, it wasn't.