Rugby's Most Misunderstood Aspect Explained | The Long Way to the Game

Are you saying the French were right and they were robbed in the semi-final? If the refs reffed rucks under technical law, there would in every ruck be a penalty. But what they do enforce is the requirement for the Jackler and everybody else who is active in the ruck to be able to support their own body weight. What would happen if I take away this player's hands and arms? Would they be able to still stand up?

And if the answer is no, then they're not on their feet. But that was dangerous because it forces the body to contort into very unnatural shapes. And so it gave rise to very dangerous leg injuries. We saw that in the last World Cup Final with Bongi. This is the long way to the game, only on Megaphone Rugby.

Welcome back to the long way to the game, or just the long way, because we're too lazy to say the long name, with my friend Paul Avernant, who's in Houston at the moment, no longer on his island in Honduras. And Paul, this is a bit of a different one. We're not talking to anybody well known or anything, but we thought, listen, man, it's been what's coming up. We all wonder sometimes about what's going on in the field. Why is there if saying that?

We all know, we all think we know the rules. Often we don't. So we thought it was a good idea to maybe just, you know, analyze some of the technical aspects of the game a bit more. And we got someone in from London, actually. Another one of our ever-widening mega-foot and rugby expatriates, let's call them that.

And I'm going to leave it over to you to introduce him. Hey, thank you, Envia. Yes, often when we are on episodes, people will comment, And hey, it would be good if you guys could explain some of the basic rules of the game, things that are confusing for us. And like what happens on this podcast, Peter Duvall from the UK, South African, contacted us and said, hey, I'm a lawyer, but I love the rules of rugby. I study them.

And often in pubs, my friends ask me about how do these things work? Why is this so complicated? And I like explaining it. And so we thought we would have Peter on. I'm going to let him introduce himself, tell us why he can add value.

And then we're just going to talk through different areas of the game over time and how the rules work and how the refs see it and what the stats mean and things like that, just to help us all be more informed fans. So, Peter, maybe I could jump to you here. Could you give us like a quick overview of yourself and why you feel like you're in a good position to help us with this? Hi, NBL. Hi, Paul.

Good to be here. Yes, I'm based in the UK. I've been here over 20 years, played rugby when I was younger through school and some Corsese rugby at Stellenbosch. And I was always interested in the rules of the game. I played at number nine.

And so I was always, even at school, I was interested in how the laws were being officiated by referees. I watched a podcast with TJ Peronari last night. He played for the Barbarians over the weekend, of course. and he made the comment that he's always commentated while he plays. And I was a bit like that, except I was commentating in my head.

I wasn't commentating out loud like TJ. But I always had the laws in the back of my mind when I played the game. And then since I stopped playing the game, I've always been interested in keeping up to date with the laws and explaining the laws to friends and family, people who are maybe not that familiar with the game. It can be quite complicated. So I get involved very often, you know, explaining to people as far as I can, how the laws work, how they've changed over time.

I also think that nowadays we're fortunate to have access to a lot of social media where we hear a lot of technical terms and jargon. And I sometimes wonder if it's complicated for some people to understand that. It's very useful for analysing stats and understanding how teams perform and how they approach the game. But I sometimes wonder if we lose people along the way when we use all this technical language and whether we could do something that, you know, where we could talk about the game in normal language that would be accessible to people who know something about the game, but also people who might be new to the game. That's a great background.

And what we're going to do today is dive into one area of the game. But before we do that, I just want to take a step back and ask you, like when you look at the game of rugby, you put it into kind of three buckets of different kinds of play. Could you just walk us through that so we have the big picture? and then we're going to pick one of those areas and drill into them. Yes, I always explain to people at the outset that I think the game is broken into three main parts, and the laws are also structured around those three main parts.

The first being the set piece. The set piece is when the game starts or restarts after a stoppage in play, so it could be a kickoff after a try has been scored or after a penalty has been taken. It could be a scrum, it could be a line out, it could be a free kick. So that's the area where the game restarts and both teams have the ability to organize themselves. And that's also the part of the game where teams can try out set moves that they may have rehearsed on the practice field.

The second main part is open play or open field play. And that's where the ball is in play. It's being passed around by the players. The ball is kept alive. The ball doesn't go to ground.

It doesn't go outside the field of play. So this is the invasion part of the game where the teams battle for territory, they battle for possession of the ball, of course. And the objective in open play is to move forward as far as possible to gain territory, sometimes put a contestable kick up. But in open field generally the game is in play, as the term suggests. And then finally there is the breakdown, the third piece.

And this is perhaps where most of the game is played. So the breakdown is the contestable area of the game where the play comes to a hold and the ball is being contested either on the ground or in the air. So either a tackle player has gone to ground and the ball is being contested there or a player is being held up with the ball and the ball is being contested above the ground. So this is the high intensity area, which requires a combination of physical strength, some technical skill, but also management of player safety and, of course, avoiding penalties as far as possible. And breakdowns are by far the most dominant feature of the modern game.

You see far more breakdowns in a match than, for example, lineouts or scrums in the set piece. So we thought today we would focus on the ruck, which is one component to the breakdown, where the ball is on the ground, whereas the mole, often seen in the line-out, is where the ball is being contested above the ground. That was kind of a great setup for me. And I would say, first of all, I was surprised by how many rucks there are in a game versus other facets of play. So that was a thing that's like 100 to 150 or more rucks in a game game versus these days maybe 10 scrums as an example or 15 20 line outs but why is the ruck such an important and then secondly confusing part of the game for me it's one of the most confusing parts to kind of figure out what's going on and i always think my team should be getting a penalty like against the other team but the ref disagrees with me so could you start with Why is the ruck so important and why is it so confusing?

And then we can kind of dive into what is a ruck, what are the rules, etc. I think it's not surprising perhaps that the ruck features so frequently in a match because rugby is ultimately a contest where the players contest for the ball. the ball and so players are very often tackled because that's the the main objective is to tackle the um the ball carrier and once the ball carrier goes to ground and two players can test for the ball over the ground you have a rock so you would expect that to happen very frequently in a game of rugby um the reason why i think it's complex is because first it's a concentrated area where you have a heap of players potentially in one area of the field contesting for the ball. The other reason I think is because in a mall situation the players are not permitted to use their hands and we'll talk about the jackal later but apart from the jackal situation the players can't use their hands so it looks disorganized because they have to use their bodies to effectively push each other over the ball. In the old days they were able to use their boots to trying to ruck out the ball, but that resulted in, you know, stamping on players and it was unsafe.

So that was ruled out. And so nowadays players can only use their boots gently. You most often see the number nine doing that towards the back of the ruck. But generally players can't use their boots. They can't use their hands.

So they have to push each other. And I think over time it also looked complicated. Until the rules were changed, you had players coming in from the side. and that looked very unnatural I think to most people to see players coming in from the side into a ruck and it looked very messy whereas now the players have to come in from the back and it's interesting when you now speak to people who are new to the game that kind of makes sense that a player has to join the ruck from the back but I think over time the rules have helped to simplify the ruck situation but I think it's complex mostly for those reasons you have a lot of players in one place potentially for the referee to look after and also those players have to use their bodies to push against each other and they can't use their hands. People remember if you like this video make sure you subscribe it make sure you are subscribed make sure you like it make sure you comment on it share it to your friends from this app please it's important that you do it and also if you want to get notified when you publish a new video I know when you put your you know click the little bell it's supposed to inform you but it doesn't always do that.

A surefire way to never miss a video from MegaFoonRugby is to subscribe to our WhatsApp channel. The link is down in the description below. Yeah, let's get back to the breakdown. Okay, so could I ask you to kind of walk us through the life cycle of a ruck? You mentioned already briefly, like, when is it formed?

When can players do certain things and they can't do certain things, when is the ruck over? And then dive into like what are the rules or how do you determine if those things have happened? Yeah so the ruck together with the scrum area and the tackle area has probably seen the most changes when it comes to the laws over time. And those changes have been mostly to improve player safety but also to improve the flow and continuity of the game. So back in the day it was quite a dangerous part of the game, where it was an uncontrolled contest, going back to your point about things looking disorganised.

In those days when the Ruck was an uncontrolled contest it was difficult for referees I think to manage, but it was also dangerous for players, especially because they were allowed to use their boots so there was you know stomping another dangerous play that you could see crocodile roles have also been outlawed over recent years so over time after the start of the professional era in the mid 90s after 95 world cup when several changes were brought in and the one that that caught most attention was the jackal law which allows a player to use their hands to contest for the ball once a tackle player has gone to ground but before a ruck has been formed. So the ruck is formed when you have at least one player from each side binding over the ball on the ground over the tackle player and from that moment the ruck is formed, no hands allowed and then it becomes a pushing contest effectively but the laws were changed to allow a player to arrive at the tackle player quickly before a ruck is formed so before two players bind over the ball and to be able to grab the ball from the tackle player who has to release the ball of course and that is called the jackal so the jackler has to remain on their feet so it's back to the basic rule of rugby, you can't play the game if you're not on your feet. So the jackler is now able to arrive at the tackled player and attempt to steal the ball off the ground before a ruck has been formed. So you know we saw some exponents of jacklers in the late 90s, George Smith, David Pocock from Australia, Heinrich Brousseau from South Africa, and they became famously known as jacklers. Nowadays, all players need that sort of technical ability to jackal over the ball, not only forwards, but also backline players.

So that's when the ruck is formed, is when you have two or more players bound over the ball. And generally, the ruck ends when the ball becomes available on either side of the ruck. so either the tackled player and his supporting players have been able to recycle the ball on their side or the defending side have been able to push over the ball and the ball comes out of the ruck on their side the referee would normally say play away or say five seconds and then the ball has to be played away from the ruck within that time the ruck also comes to an end if it goes over the try line So if there a rock close to the trial line and it crosses the trial line then the rock comes to an end but generally in open play it when the ball comes out on either side and if the ball if the ball becomes unplayable in the ruck situation the referee would normally avoid a scrum and the scrum would normally go to the team that was going forward during the ruck or if the rock wasn't really moving the referee would normally award the penalty to sorry the scrum to the side that was in possession when the rock was formed. Okay, so I have many questions now. I want to start with the Jackal.

So, two things. First of all, where did that name come from, Jackal? And secondly, it seems it's like one of the exciting moments in games, especially at the end of games when there's like a close score, but it seems like there's a thin line between a successful Jackal and a penalized jackal. Could you talk about both of those? Do you know where the name comes from?

And then how does the ref make a decision that the jackal was legal or illegal? Because it seems the margins are razor thin. Yes, I think the name comes from the animal, the jackal, which is known for poaching and stealing prey, especially the prey of much larger animals. And so I think it's really a poaching action when the jackler arrives at a tackle situation they have to be very quick before the other players arrive to form a ruck so they have to be nimble like a jackal and they have to be very quick and they have to move very fast in that motion of attempting to steal the ball you really only get one one attempt at it you know within a few seconds because you have to stay on your feet and within seconds players will arrive at the mall and attempt to push the jackler off the ground so i think that's where the name comes from it's just it's because of it it's it's it's a poaching motion um it it has become very technical and over time we've seen the referees approach it in different ways for a long time the jackler was king when the law was first introduced and referees are readily awarded penalties in favor of jacklers as long as they were on their feet and they had their hands on the ball for only a few seconds the referee would penalize the player on the ground for holding on perhaps and so the jackal became a very effective mechanism to gain penalties. More recently I think we've seen referees balance that a bit more and so they now encourage the attacking team, in other words the team who is trying to recycle the ball, encourage that team to remove the Jackler.

So they're giving that team more time to attempt to get the Jackler off his feet and not awarding these penalties so quickly. And I think that is because they want to improve continuity in the flow of the game. So they are, you now see referees very often looking at the Jackler, the Jackler looking at the referee saying, I'm on my feet, I have my hands on the ball, why am I not getting a penalty referee?" And the referee gives the opposing side a few more seconds to have a wrestle with that Jackler to see if they can get him off their feet and keep possession of the ball. So I think it's difficult for the referee, it's really split second, but it has changed over time the way that it's been officiated.

Can I ask you in the context of I mentioned that how many rucks there are in a game so that it happens a lot but lots of people will talk about that the ruck is a big influence on the game. Can you talk about why it is so important to both offensive and defensive teams to either make the ruck fast or slow it down in the context of what it forces on the rest of the field? Yeah, I think it's because the ruck happens so frequently in a match that makes it very important. Again, every tackle situation can result in a ruck and that happens very frequently. So it's important for both teams to secure a good outcome from any ruck, especially the team that's gone to ground with the ball to be able to recycle that.

But then equally for the defending team, it's an opportunity to overturn possession and potentially get a penalty if the attacking team are holding on to the ball on the ground for example. So it's an opportunity for both teams to earn penalties to gain or regain possession. So I think that's why it's important. I think teams tactically decide how many players to commit to a rough depending on where they are on the field, whether they are in possession of the ball, in other words defending the ruck, or whether they are the opposing team who is not in possession. So for example if an attacking team is close to the defending try line and a ruck is formed and the attacking team is in possession, they may commit fewer players to the ruck to be able to fan out their players across the field to be able to create an attacking try scoring opportunity whereas if a ruck is formed on your own try line and and and either you are defending that ruck or you're trying to regain and recycle possession from that ruck you might commit more more players to that ruck to prevent it from going over the try line so it depends on where the players are that would normally determine how many players they commit to that ruck situation and of course the more players you commit to the ruck the fewer players you have to defend elsewhere on the field so that's a careful balance and also the more players you commit to the ruck the deeper your offside line goes the offside line is at the hindmost feet on your side so it's behind the last player who's committed to the ruck on your side and the back line and everybody else has to stay behind that line so more players you commit to the ruck the deeper back your offside line goes.

So if you want to have a flat offside line to be able to attack and you are recycling the ball from the ruck, you might again commit fewer players to the ruck to be able to keep that offline offside line as shallow as possible. So on our channel and other channels I've heard analysts debate the importance of ruck speed. It's one of the key stats you hear against ruck speed and you hear the mythical three-second ruck. So first of all, sometimes teams seem to explicitly try to go really fast from the rucks. And then you get other teams that either the defensive team is trying to slow it down, but sometimes even the offensive team slows it down.

Can you tell us why that is so important? What is the benefit of a team having really fast ruck speed? What does it do on the field when the ruck speed is fast? And why would an offensive team sometimes slow it down? I understand why a defensive team would slow it down.

But why would an offensive team slow it down? Some teams offensively like quick ruck speed, Ireland being a good example, where they like to recycle the ball very quickly. and that means that they can use set moves to be able to distribute the ball very quickly. When the next player is tackled, then they very quickly recycle it the other way with two or three seconds ruck speed. So the ball is recycled very quickly in that ruck situation in the hope that the defending team's defense would at some point start to become disorganized because you are playing across the width of the field with quick ruck speed side to side in the hope that at some point there will be a break opportunity to break through the defensive line or that defensive line will not be able to cope with that quick ruck speed at width across the field.

It comes at a risk of course because that is phase to play and Ireland often you know do this in 10, 12, 15 phases ruck after ruck after ruck that at any point in time one of those rucks can become contested by a jackler in particular if somebody commits to to a jackal and then you can concede a penalty i think other teams may even offensively slow down the ruck because they might have a particular move in mind so if they're not planning to distribute the ball across the back line for example they want to put a contestable kick up there's no reason why they need a quick rock to be able to do that. On the contrary, they might want to set their players up outside of the rock to be able to chase for that kick. So they give the number nine sufficient time, even if it means slow rock speed, to be able to prepare for that contestable kick. So it depends on the tactic that you want to deploy from that rock and quick rock speed isn't always most conducive to that. Let me make sure I kind of got it.

There are a lot of these rocks that happen in a game, so that's one reason they're important there's just a lot of them if you're an offensive team the benefit of quick ruck speed is it doesn't give the defense time to set up like with set pieces you talked about scrums and line outs the one thing about scrums and line outs everyone is in the position they want to be in when they happen a quick ruck speed means the defense is most likely not as set up as they want to be and if you do lots of successive quick rucks it's more likely that there will be a breakdown in the defense that's what i understood but i also then understand from you which i didn't just like think about obviously it's true for the offensive team as well the faster their ruck speed is the less likely they're completely set up as well and so if they want to set up a structured play they slow it down for a kick or something else so that's really helpful for me you know just just something that came to mind now lately we've been seeing um some teams when they commit a player to the ruck as a defender or maybe even as an attacking team they're not a player holding the ball the players coming into support and would sort of swivel you know they put their head in a certain position but they would circle their legs around and try and interfere with the scramo for example and the likes that's is that illegal is it legal is it ethical did i describe it correctly i just i've been seeing that and i've been actually seeing it a lot of the irish teams as a matter of interest. What do you think of that? Yeah I think it's technically against the laws. I mean the laws are clear that once a ruck is formed you have to join in through the gate. So if you were talking about the supporting player who's supporting the player who's been tackled, who's on the ground, the width of the player who's on the ground becomes the gate.

So generally when players are tackled they make sure that they go to ground in a way that their bodies positioned laterally across the field and they try to present the ball towards their supporting players so the width of that player on the ground becomes the gate and their supporting players can only commit to the ruck if they are in line with that gate so if they're swiveling around that gate across to the other side then they're technically infringing the laws they should be committing to that ruck through that gate on their side of the tackled player and all the other players who commit to the ruck also have to join from behind through the gate. The first two players who arrive at the ruck can arrive side by side but they have but they can't go outside of the the width of the player who is on the ground and who has been tackled so any swiveling around the width of that tackle player would technically be against the laws but you're right I've seen Ireland do that but I've also seen some of the Irish teams in the URC being penalized for that. Okay, something that just popped up there and I like asking the next question from the previous answers. In fact, the player number one needs to lie as basically horizontally as he possibly can, you know, to make himself as wide as possible. So the gate is as wide as possible.

But the other question was that you mentioned that he has to present the ball. So I often see a player rolling around and trying to get himself over the ball. How far can he go with that to make it legal? Yeah again, referees have become forgiving about this but technically a tackled player is allowed one motion once they go to ground. That could be a one crawl or it could be one turn but they're allowed one motion.

What you sometimes see is a tackler going to ground making one crawl and then turning as well and then presenting the ball. Most players in the tackle situation when they go to ground, make sure first of all that they're able to present the ball to their supporters. Just one thing about that gate, now he lands, let's for argument's sake, he lands the wrong way, he lands longitude, so he's very narrow. Is he allowed to play with the ball now in that one motion you talked about to now sort of creepy crawly around to make himself wide again? He can't creepy crawly around, what he can do is if he ends up in that, that direction, he can place the ball between his legs and that's what you would often see.

In the unusual circumstances where a player finds himself in that position after the tackle, the one motion that they're allowed to make would be to place that ball between their legs backwards. So he's not allowed to twist or turn into his body to make the gate wider? No no I mean no you can in one motion I suppose jump up and position yourself differently that would be your one permitted motion but you wouldn be allowed to crawl around in order to reposition yourself you could in one motion flip yourself up from the air and turn yourself sideways naturally that should be permissible but generally if they end up in that position what you would find is they just push the ball back between the legs I'd like to see Wilkulow doing jumping in the air doing a sideways movement while airborne and landing properly. Envia, that's kind of interesting that you would, I think it was on an episode with Andre Retorius in the past once where he was doing a deep analysis of some players in that ruck and I was intrigued to learn that even though all of them, the tackled player, tries to push the ball back, there are some that are clearly better than others in how aggressively and far they push the ball back to make sure that the jackal can't get to it. And Andre kind of pointed that out.

He showed us clips of like, you know, a player doing what you would think is the normal thing, extending their arms out. But the jackalers are so good that they sometimes snatch it in that mood, whereas the aggressive players almost fling their upper body backwards and get the ball really far away from the ruck. It was one of the, what I love about Andre's episodes is that that kind of detail that as a casual fan you don't recognize and now i always see it in the games is who are really good at that uh peter i want to ask you uh follow on to this you sometimes will see in the rucks the jackal or the player that falls with the balls do kind of where they lift their hands up like this to the ref and they're showing him a picture why are they doing that and what are they showing to him they are showing to the referee that they have released the tackle player so in a tackle situation two things must happen the tackle player must release the ball on the ground to make it contestable but also the player who has made the tackle must release the tackle player sometimes the jackler is also the player who's first on the scene because that's the player who who made the tackle. So if you've made the tackle, you have to roll away from that tackle. The tackle player has to release the ball.

The tackler can then get off the ground after they've rolled away and become a jackler. And they're putting their hands up to the referee to show that they have released the tackle player and they can now go in for the jackal. So they have complied with those requirements and those steps. They haven't interfered with the tackle player on ground following the tackle they have released visibly and they're now going in for the jackal. Peter, just on that subject to Jacqueline, I think back to the World Cup, what was it against France, and the French are still to this day stewing about the fact that Kouacher-Smith put his hands on the ground, remember that.

What does that mean? Why was he theoretically, I mean of course he didn't touch the ground, I'm sure of it, but why wasn't he theoretically allowed to do that? What's the Yeah, this is one of the things that I think make it very difficult for referees to referee around the ruck area. So everybody in the ruck must be on their feet and everybody in the ruck must be able to support their own body weight, including the jackler. Technically under the laws, everybody in a ruck must have their head and shoulders above their waist.

But of course, players are so athletic nowadays, they're able to stay on their feet with their head and shoulders below their waist, especially if they have a low center of gravity. So that's not really enforced by the referees, but what they do enforce is the requirement for the jackler and everybody else who is active in the ruck to be able to support their own body weight. So the referee must think to themselves, what would happen if I take away this player's hands and arms? would they be able to still stand up and if the answer is no then they're not on their feet what happens sometimes if they lose their balance forwards and they have to prop themselves up on the ground they put a hand down on the ground and by then they've lost the contest because they're no longer on their feet and sometimes that's not spotted by the referee or it's perhaps overlooked but it sometimes gets gets missed that a player has perhaps just for a split second touch the ground to be able to prevent themselves from falling over. And so technically if he touches the ground just briefly, it counts as he's no longer supporting his own body weight and technically he shouldn't be able to jackal the ball.

Yes. Are you saying the French were right and they were robbed in the semi-final? I doubt it very much. One would have to go and look at it again, but I'm relatively certain that Kroger would have got it right because he's an expert. Of course, whatever you know.

Okay, and so I have a follow-up question on that. But before that, I think in the World Cup final, there was a different scenario with Ardy Sevilla, where you can hearing him argue with the ref, I released the ball before trying to jackal, and the ref saying, I disagree, I didn't see it that way. Is that an example of him not doing theatrically enough, taking his hands off the ball? Yeah, it's him not persuading the referee that he went through those steps and that there was never any discontinuity between making the tackle and poaching the ball. It was all in one motion and that's not allowed.

There must be separation from the ball before you go in for the tackle. Personally, I don't like the theatrics of players having to throw their hands up. It also had waste time. For me, in that tackle situation, every split second counts. and at that point where the jackal is made there are not many players in that area it's not a crowded area you have the tackled player you have perhaps a tackler who may also become the poacher jackler or you may have the tackle player the tackler and the third player who comes in as the jackler so the referee should be able to very clearly see in that situation whether the ball was released by tackle player and whether the tackler was released by the uh whether the tackle player was released by the tackler shouldn't be necessary to my mind for the the jackler to be able to demonstrate in that way that they've complied with that requirement the referee should be able to pick that up i have a thousand questions you've just kind of triggered in me how much there is that when i'm excited about a game that i don't fully know so i want to go to a crock role it's just something you mentioned earlier.

You said crock roll. Could you be specific of when a referee looks at what qualifies as a crock roll? Yes, a crock roll again is of course a reference to the way that crocodiles attack their prey. So it's that sort of twisting motion when you see the crocodile catch its prey, dragging it into the water and then twisting it, drowning it under the surface. So if you think of that motion, at the ruck situation, what happened previously was when you had a jackler contesting for the ball on their feet, an opposing player might grab them around the body, around the waist or even around the leg and then twist them laterally sideways to get them off their feet.

Because once the jackler is off their feet, they're out of the game, they can no longer contest for possession. But that was dangerous because it forces the body to contort into very unnatural shapes. and so it gave rise to very dangerous leg injuries we saw that in the last world cup final with bongi and so that's become enforced more strictly and so it's any attempt to in the ruck situation to grab a player around their waist body or leg and then twisting them contorting them sideways where their leg might get trapped in the rock but their upper body is being twisted laterally and then ligaments get torn and so on. So you often hear commentators, ex-rugby players and analysts say that if the refs ref rucks on the technical law there would in every ruck be a penalty. Is that accurate?

And if it is accurate, so what are the refs looking at if they're not going on the technical laws to decide when there should be a penalty versus not? I think there is some truth than that and that's just by the very nature of what the ruck situation is you have between four and 14 players in that concentrated area with technical rules where they can't use their hands so that's bound to become quite difficult for the players and so i do think that it's probably true that in in most ruck situations you could pick on something as an infringement but of course the the referees have to be pragmatic and I think they are. It's not always, the laws aren't always applied to the letter. I think the referees would look at a couple of things. They would look at whether an infringement has interfered with possession.

So if for example a player is off their feet in the rock and they're not supposed to be contesting but they touch the ball while they're off their feet and that has an impact on where possession ends up, then the referee would have to do something about that. Also dangerous play, I think if a player dives into a ruck off their feet and even if they don't make contact with the area above the shoulders, if they come in diving off their feet, the referee wouldn't ignore that. But to give another example, technically under the laws when you join a ruck you have to bind either onto one of your own teammates or you have to bind onto one of the opposing players and technically that bind can't just be a loose arm around the shoulder it has to be a proper snug bind and also you have to make contact with another part of the person's body it can't just be around the shoulder you often see players joining the ruck with just a very casual arm around the shoulder which doesn't really qualify as a bind but that's an example of something that referees would probably overlook. So I think the referees try to be practical and also they want to let the game flow as far as possible. So if ultimately the team that's gone to ground in the tackle area ends up gaining the ball back and that's not been interfered with, then the referee would probably let the play go on even if there may have been minor technical infringements unless it's something that falls into you know the category of dangerous play or something which interfered with regaining the position.

That brings me to, and I love jackaling, and I remember Envy, you and me, Stedman Hans is jackal at the end of that game against Glasgow. It's such an exciting, fun aspect. When being cleared out, though, when is the clear out of a jackal illegal? And I remember in the last two years, there are many cases where players have been yellow-carded or even red carded for the clear out. When is it illegally clearing out and what leads to a yellow or red card?

Yes, the Orton series of last year was particularly bad when it came to clear out to the ruck and cards being shown for that. Well first the player has to be on their feet. If they come to the ruck to clear out a jackler for example they can't dive in off their feet and dive into the jackler off their feet so irrespective of whether they are hitting the jackler above or below the hidden shoulders they have to be on their feet and referees are quite strict on this and so if a player comes clearly diving into the ruck off their feet like they would be diving into a pool that would not be permitted by a referee. More seriously when you come in to clean out at the ruck and you hit the opposing player above the shoulder area particularly around the head and face that's where the cards come in and so a red card can be shown for that if it's highly dangerous what you see nowadays of course is that yellow card is shown and then it's sent off for a review and then it could be converted into a red card so we we saw a few of those in the autumn of last year um i think players are now being coached of course very carefully to avoid that but you still see some of it and it's difficult for players i think because you can't use your hands in the rug uh so the only thing you can do is physical force i know of course that paul was referring to that game against leinster stormers losing the game that that they could have won by Ruan Ackerman getting an eventual red card for that thing. But the thing that he did there, he dropped his shoulder.

You often hear the commentators talking about dropping his shoulder. What exactly does that mean? Dropping the shoulder is when you come in to clean out, but you are not binding. So you were just dropping literally your shoulder into the opposing player to shove them off the ruck, but you are not using your arms to bind. And so again, one of the basic rules of the ruck is if you want to take part in the ruck, And if you want to commit to contesting the ruck, you must bind onto either one of your own players or onto an opposition player.

While we're on that subject now, I just want to get back quickly to that Jack LaTouch from the ground that you just said that effectively he's out of the ruck. But he's not really out of the ruck. He's still physically there. But he's not allowed to partake anymore. That becomes a problem.

How does that work? How do you get that guy out of the way now? Or can he just stand there and be an obstacle kind of a thing? Yeah you sometimes see the referee say to Ajakla hands on the ground and he would show that motion hands on the ground And all that the jackler could then do is to stop contesting The jackler is still able to contest in the ruck, but he's no longer permitted to go for the ball on the ground, because they've lost their jackal privilege, because they had a hand on the ground, but they can still, like any other player, contest in the ruck as long as they're on their feet. Okay, so now what often happens now if somebody gets cleared up and he just sort of falls on the wrong side of the of this ruck now and then conveniently he stays lying there.

Talk to me about that. Yeah, I think that's another area we spoke about minutes ago where I think referees would apply sort of discretion. You often see players, and this is what looks messy to the casual observer is when you see these players getting flung out of a ruck on both sides and nobody's behind the gate anymore, not as neat as you might expect under the laws, but if that player is truly trapped and can't move and they're in an off-site position because they're lying on the opposite side of the rock, the referee would overlook that also if they're not interfering with how the ruck is developing and how the ball is being recycled and the referee would often say to the number nine he's trapped he can't move and so say to the number nine to play on but the number nines like to put their knee on display and keeping there and that's been the thing that's been popping up lately that's sort of cynical almost but i mean it's uh part of the game yeah or not just the number nine other players who are on that side of the rock might make sure that that player can't can't move away i think the referees are quite wise to that um i think it's part of the game you don't want to see really because it makes the rock look very messy and disorganized, which is what you don't want. And I think it's also something that could lead to injury if that player is lying on the wrong side. I would say that's definitely something I've noticed recently, is that refs are much more lenient on the trap player.

And I've heard them say, like what you've just said, Peter, no, you're holding him in and stuff like that, which were in the past, they were very quick to blow that. I would just say in a weird way, and I know it has safety. I kind of long back for the old days when I played rugby, whereas the back, that was the reason I never wanted to get caught in the ruck. And if I was caught on the ruck, I would definitely not be on the wrong side because you would be physically removed by the cleats of someone stomping on your back or something like that. And even though I understand why it's not part of the game anymore.

It actually was an interesting part of rugby in our days, that you were allowed to basically rake your boots over the back or on the legs of a player caught in the ruck. Yeah, I think it's inevitable again that you will sometimes find players on the wrong side of the ruck. If a player, for example, comes in for a clean out and they miss the clean out and their momentum takes them straight over the ruck to the other side. So now they're on the opposite side of ruck. What they should do is immediately get away from the ruck, run back to their side, come in through the gate strictly under the laws and they can then recontest and take party in the ruck again.

But it's sometimes just not possible and the referee again has to balance enforcing technical laws against allowing the game to flow. Just something that we sort of talk about as granted but not necessarily know exactly what it means when is a player offside in a breakdown in a rock so the offside line is the hindmost feet on both sides of the rock so if there are very few players committed to the rock then the offside line is quite shallow so it's more more closer to the opposite side if you commit a number of players to the rock then your offside line goes backwards because and the whole back line has to move back to be in line with that laterally so it's always where the hindmost feet are on both sides of the ruck and I think that was a good law that they introduced because it creates some space between the back end of each side of the ruck and there was a time when the offside line was the middle of the ruck and so those players who were not committed to the ruck could loiter alongside the middle of the ruck and then be able to rush up if the ball got recycled on the other side whereas now those players who are not committed to the ruck have to stay behind the hindmost feet on their side. Okay but the players in the in the actual ruck when are they off so I mean I can't just go lie on the other side and contest for the ball there's a point where I now suddenly am in an illegal position where's that point? so you must be on your side of where the tackled player went to ground i mean that so so if a ruck wasn't formed that would be the offside line uh and once a ruck is formed you could only join it from behind that position through the gate so that so the moment you join from the side that's not really offside that's just joining in from the side which is not permitted um but you can never be ahead of the tackled player in a ruck situation because the ruck must be formed on your side of that tackled player situation. If you end up accidentally on the other side, as we described earlier, then you're out of the ruck and you have to attempt to get yourself out of it physically, come back to your side and rejoin from the back through the gate.

Maybe I'm just illustrating my ignorance here, but let's say for arguments like I'm now Bacchus and I come storming in there and I do everything properly and I step right over the player holding the ball and I'm now on the other side of him, he's lying behind me with the ball and everything am I offside? Am I is that called counter-racking? I don't think a referee would blow you up for being offside because you ended up there from an attempted clean-out but what the referee would expect you to do is to get away from that area because you're on the wrong side of the ruck to get away from that area, remove yourself from the ruck and go back to your own team and enter it from the gate again but sorry just one thing people what is counter-rucking then you know we saw that against the all blacks they were counter-racking us last year in the first stage to get the spring box it's very successfully so what's the line there in terms of the legal line if i call it that so legally counter-racking is when you physically are stronger in the sense that you are pushing the other side backwards and you are getting yourself over the tackled player the tackled player ends up on your side of the ruck because you have pushed the tackled players supporters backwards but you can do that only by pushing and being in a bound position you can't do that by coming in from the side you have to stay within that gate within the lateral width of the tackle player and it sometimes happens that by only it by brute strength the defending team would push the attacking team backwards and end up going over the tackle player and then regain possession the tackle player can do nothing in that situation they have to release the ball and yes so that's a great because i was going to ask something similar to that and related to that so my question is in a counter ruck which happens less frequently than for example a jackal at what point does the defending team realize that they are now the attacking team and they have countered sufficiently that they are able to pick the ball up with their hand so the the tackle player must release the ball so if physically they have gone over the tackle player the ball is should be there on the ground and what they can then do is simply recycle as if it was their own ball that went to ground in a tackle. So the rules remain exactly the same, except that the game line has changed. So they have now pushed the attacking team over that game line.

The ball is on their side. It's there, it's available. The referee would note that there's been a pushover, so to speak, over the ruck. The ball is now available on the defending side, and the referee would say, would say play, play away in five seconds. So the ball would be recycled in the same way that the ball would have gone to ground with the tackle player on their side.

Now there is a similar situation but I think it's different. You'll sometimes see, because normally it's expected that the offensive team will get the ball back in the ruck and so you'll see a ruck form and it's not a the the defensive team doesn't counter rock over the ball but you'll see a player in the world cup i remember clearly a scenario of sia khalisi suddenly like having access to the ball on the other side and he's looking at the referee saying can i pick it up can i pick it up and in that case the referee said yes but he lost he lost the advantage in that time he was looking at for the ref. What is that situation where it's the ball is clearly on the offensive side yet, but a defensive player late in the ruck seems to think they can get the ball and they're asking permission from the ref to pick it up. What's going on there? Yeah, I think this relates to what we talked about earlier, where I think the referees are now balancing the jackling law to give the jackler less time to execute the jackal.

Back in the day when the jackler was king, the referee would have almost immediately given a penalty to the jackler as long as they were able to show that they had their hands on the ball after the tackle was made and that they were on their feet. Now the referee is encouraging the attacking team to push the jackler off their feet, to take the jackler out effectively. If there is an advantage situation it may be something to do with the fact that the referee was playing an advantage for something else and although the jackler was correct and the jackler executed the jackal correctly, advantage had been lost from something that that happened earlier. But I do think that referees are now generally not rewarding the Jacklers so quickly anymore. They are more sort of encouraging the attacking team to at least make an attempt to challenge the Jackler and get them off their feet.

Peter, I realized that I apparently can ask questions about the Ruck forever. I kind of have my last question maybe, or second last question, just what is sealing off? Sometimes you'll hear the referee and giving a penalty say you're sealing off the ruck what does that mean that's generally to do with players who come in off their feet um and they are um lying on the rock off their feet um and so they're in they they so they're not supposed to be contesting in the rock or to be taking part in the rock because they're not supporting their own their own body weight because their bodies are spread all over the rock, they're preventing the ball from exiting the rock. And so that's effectively sealing the rock and the ball becomes dead inside because those players are sealing it while they're off their feet. Thank you very much for that.

I think that's a good way to kind of wrap this episode up. I hope for our viewers that they found it interesting and it helped them understand the game and this complex area better and that our viewers in the comments will tell us if they want to see more of this kind of content and what area they would like to see next that will be helpful for us and then peter i'd like to give you the last word first of all thank you for coming up thank you for sharing your knowledge and your knowledge of the laws with us if you were able to change one law related to the RUC that you think would make rugby better. I give you the closing words on that. I think I would probably go a little bit back to the time when players off their feet were being strictly refereed.

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