Re: Wigan v Leeds | Sunday 26th May | Etihad Stadium | 7:30p : Fri May 31, 2013 10:44 am
tvoc wrote:
I imagine it doesn't say anywhere in the rules that at the PTB you only need make an attempt with the foot rather than making actual contact but we all know that's all the referees are concerned with these days. IMO players should be made to play the ball correctly and penalised when they don't but for some reason that particular skill has been sacrificed.
To carry on the PTB question, this is one of my pet peeves.
"Regain feet (b) The tackled player shall without delay regain his feet where he was tackled, lift the ball clear of the ground, face his opponent’s goal line and drop or place the ball on the ground in front of his foremost foot.
Play with foot (e) When the ball touches the ground it must be heeled (i.e. backwards) by the tackled player. The ball must not be kicked or heeled by the player marking him. The ball is in play when it has been played backward"
The extract is from the official laws of the game. I draw atention in particular to the sentence "drop or place the ball on the ground in front of his foremost foot". Why then is absolutely any seperation of hand and ball when placing the ball on the deck penalised? Why is any slight forward motion of the ball penlised - even mm's? It's not a knock on, the laws say you can "drop" the ball - there is no part of this that is open to interpretation - you can drop the ball as long as you do it in the right place and then play it backwards. You can drop the ball forward according to the actual rule as long as you heel it backwards.
At what point did referees decide to penalise any seperation of hand and ball and can any referee explain why it "helps" the game to give a knock on every time the ball is not perfectly placed on the deck?