Morning,

I know this has probably been covered on the forums before . . . and I know the rule has been apparent for a long time . . . but as I watched Bradford and Catalans yesterday . . . I wondered . . .

Why can the video ref not be used for a forward pass call?

Thanks!

cause its a refs call

because one angle can make it look forward whereas another will make it look perfectly fine.

Indeed, and you can't use the position of the passer/receiver as due to their forward speed, the ball could well be going backwards relative to the passer, yet still forward relative to the pitch.

The law of perspective

But there is a great deal of uncertainty surrounding lots of video ref calls - knock-ons, who played the ball, grounded properly etc. Many of them are debat-able so I reckon it's time to bring forward passes in too.

In onside/offside calls, players can sometimes look offside from one angle and onside from another, sometimes you can't even tell at all because they're not seen on a specific camera angle. I don't see how we shouldn't be able to rule out blatantly obvious forward passes by referring a call upstairs - if they're unsure you can always give the 'benefit of the doubt'

You've just made that up.

Yup. Along with the physical fact of momentum.


cue: rerun of Johnsenior's forward pass thread and people running down corridors throwing bundles of clothes through doorways.

All those years of sleeping through Physics lectures has finally paid off.