blindmice says...

Ruckingkiwi, not so. if you are not bound on the ruck and you are in front of it then you are off side (even with attacking ball). Driving over/through it and obstructing the defense in front of the ruck also is a PK for obstruction. That said, the policing of this aspect of the game is a little lax, i will grant you that. The concept of offside pillars operates on the same concept. Attacking players not bound to the ruck, stand in front of the hindmost foot to obstruct defenders getting to the scrum half.

Posted 10:26 12th April 2012

JayStarr says...

@ joerugby: He warned the Stormers a few moments earlier about cynical play after Duanne Vermeulen and then Deon Fourie deliberately played the ball on the ground while the Highlanders were attacking close to their goal line. He had a point there, so no problem...

But then he gave Tiaan Liebenberg a yellow card - saying that he again played the ball on the ground. The only problem was they weren't anywhere close to their goal line - so it certainly wasn't cynical (i.e. what he warned them about) - and you could see that Lienberg legitimately went for the ball... and some would say won it legally (I've seen many balls turned over like that this season)...

So that yellow card was definitely incorrect.

HOWEVER, I do think that it will count in the Stormers' favour that they have Pollock for the 2nd week running. They are familiar with his style of reffing now and he is familiar with their approach now - so he can tell them what he didn't like them doing in the game before and they can understand each other better...

But more importantly, I'm sure in his match review his errors would've been highlighted to him (and his assistants - who are also again involved this week).

Besides the incorrect yellow card, they also missed at least 7 clear forward passes from the Highlanders and another 3 clear early engages...

Pollock also failed to reward the advantage the Stormers had in the scrums by penalising the Highlanders. In the first scrum he penalised the Stormers for going straight down - but the Highlanders folded! Then for the rest of the match, every time the scrum collapsed from the pressure the Stormers were putting the Highlanders under, Pollock just reset the scrum...

So hopefully he's realised his mistakes and will be fairer towards the Stormers this week.

Posted 22:11 09th April 2012