Sports After Dark

This is the first post in a regular Wednesday series entitled “Aw Ref”, where Sports After Dark’s Hamish McBrearty explains some of the misunderstood laws of rugby union beginning with the lineout.

The lineout is one of rugby union’s methods of restarting play. In fact the law book provides a very good definition of what a lineout is: “The purpose of the lineout is to restart play, quickly, safely and fairly, after the ball has gone into touch, with a throw in between two lines of players.”

Despite being far simpler than other methods of restarting play, such as a scrum, the lineout is still misunderstood by many. Who is the receiver, and what can he do? When does a lineout end? And what makes a throw “straight”?

Watch any club game of rugby and at virtually every lineout someone will shout out, “not straight.”  If a throw is not straight then the non-throwing team is given the option to throw in themselves or have a scrum, virtually always choosing the scrum.

However it would seem that most fans have no idea what the definition of straight is. The law says that straight is “between the inside shoulders of both lines of players”, giving the thrower a one metre wide target for a legal throw.

There are only two positions that a referee can take up to accurately judge if a ball is throw straight, either directly behind the thrower, or at the end of the lineout looking between the lines. Neither of these positions is particularly useful for fully controlling the lineout or moving to the next phase of play, so instead referees watch the position of the jumper as he claims the ball. If he claims it comfortably with his inside arm, the throw was probably straight, if he reaches back towards his own goal line to claim it, then the throw probably was not straight.

Aside from the players competing for the ball in the lineout, both teams also have one player standing about a metre from the jumping players, often the half-back, known as the receiver. Sometimes the ball will be passed directly to the receiver who distributes the ball to the back-line, while other times the receiver may actually join the lineout and compete for the ball. The receiver on the non-throwing team may only join the lineout and compete for the ball if the throwing team’s receiver does so first.

The final area of confusion for many people is when a lineout concludes. The law defines many ways in which a lineout can end, but these can be summarised as follows: when the ball have moved off the line of touch (the imaginary line down the centre of the linout), when the ball goes beyond the 15 metre line or inside the five metre line, or if a ruck of maul forms from the lineout, when it has moved clear of the line of touch.

Hopefully you now have a better understanding of what is going on during a lineout and will be able to watch the game with a greater appreciation for the laws. Next week: The tackle.

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The Aw Ref #1 - The Lineout by Hamish McBrearty, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.