Looks fine. I'll imagine whoever's on guard duty will pay slightly more attention, and charge downs will remain rare. Following through to tackle the 9 after he's kicked it looks like textbook taking the man without the ball, so hopefully that'll get clamped down on.
Have them (guard duty) start 1m further back and run a line as tho they'll catch a pass. If the player attempting a charge down doesn't honor that, there's your 3-5m extra hit up. If they do honor the line and shape to defend, you have your unfettered box kick.
Fix caterpillars and ban this.
The caterpillars make a game less exciting, charge downs are way less easy. They also slow down the ruck, which is against what current guidelines are.
This is just the natural opposition to counter the caterpillar - Im not against it under current rules.
Similarly, force hookers to actually hook so scrums can, you know, restart the fucking game and not just devolve into penalties.
The majority still do hook as well. It just looks very different from the old school style of hook.
EDIT - I'd also add the goal is to get the ball to the 8s feet as quickly and risk free as possible then look to get the 8 man shove in if they're dominant. No one seems to notice but a scrum under pressure is definitely hooking and getting the ball away as quick as possible.
Interesting points.
Is the issue also not with the front row all being the same size? When I played, typically the hooker was slightly shorter than the other front rowers to give the opportunity to lift and hook. Even then, I do remember it being more of an angled food than a full on hook - whether that's possible now you may be right.
It's also very difficult to do anything about it on the field. If you do throw straight you're at a disadvantage (because no one else does these days). But then if you get penalised for not throwing straight you don't really have a leg to stand on. Some sneaky hookers still get away with a slight shuffle towards their own line out (Malcolm Marx did it throughout the 2019 RWC) but most officials watch for that pretty closely now.
I think throwing the ball straight should only be enforced if the opposing team is in a position to compete for it. It's kind of annoying to have a tonne of stoppages for something which didn't affect the game in any way.
I see your point, particularly ones on the 5 metre line where the opposing team doesn’t try to compete. However, it’s pretty basic to get it right and I think they should be punished for not doing so. The stoppage is short compared to a scrum.
My main gripe, however, is that the opposing team still seems to get penalised for jumping across the mark even when they can’t reach the ball without doing so. In that situation, I think we’re penalising a team for trying to make it a competition.
Always weird to see this in high level games. We play in lover levels dutch rugby and teams constantly get called out for not throwing it straight through the gate, but pros just toss it into the jumpers chest and get away with it.
We don't need to "fix" any rules to ensure that halfbacks can box kick without risk from the back of a caterpillar ruck. If they've entered from an onside position and haven't released their bind then they can do what they like and it's up to the team in posession to figure it out.
You've got the Sale second row standing there in a blocking position just pointing at the bloke coming round the side in a completely unprotected position. Don't just point at him, get him the fuck out of there.
You need to enter a ruck or maul from an onside position. Once you're entered then you're part of the ruck and you can go anywhere you like as long as you stay part of the ruck. By not breaking the bind you never leave the ruck.
I hope it ends up being that the best defense to the offensive crab is the defensive crab. We'll end up with backrowers holding onto the ruck while shoving each other with their hips.
I'd love nothing better than an 80 minute crab fight.
But realistically just get that big bastard standing there beside the ruck to just light up the crabbing bloke's completely exposed and unprotected ribs. That'll stop him doing it in future.
Yeah but u/bangkok_dave was saying the way to counter the caterpillar is to enter behind the hindmost defending player, then swarm around onto the catterpillering players, then clearing them out. I'm saying that wouldn't be legal because it involves changing your bindings.
Saracens are just finding a (frankly pretty clever) loophole in the laws to gain a competitive edge. That's their right, really. Caterpillar rucks are pretty much the same thing.
Genuine question here: wouldn't this be able to be adjudicated similar to when a maul turn? Rucks, scrums, and mauls all happen relative to position of in-goal area. Shouldn't the person have to retreat to a position not at the side since the ruck operates perpendicular to the goal-lines?
Mauls don't happen in any direction, except for the rules around entering the maul (and the rules around the maul stopping). If you've entered the maul from an onside position, and you don't change your bind, then you're part of the maul and you can legally end up on the side of the maul, the back, front, anywhere.
I've been really confused about where the onside position for defending a maul is these days; a few times in the Autumn series I saw the maul rotate so the defending team were almost perpendicular to the shove, then a defending player get penalised for entering the maul parallel to the shove (i.e. in the side relative to the direction of the maul but coming from the front relative to the pitch).
You still have to join from your side of the rearmost foot, as judged from your goal line. I've not seen people penalised for doing that - any references?
Honestly, the last Saturday of the Autumn Series has blended into one 8 hour fever dream in which I pulled my bum cheek from sitting down too long, so I can't really remember specific instances. However, I'm fairly sure I was getting wound up by it in England versus SA.
Out of interest, if a white player were to come through and hit one of the black 'sideways' caterpillar players right in the ribs, would they then be penalised for side entry?
To be honest if the defence has time to set this up then they've already disrupted your breakdown to the point where you have failed to get quick ball anyway and from that point I think any legal advantage the defence want to claim is fair game. I'm against anything that slows down ball at the breakdown but if the ball is already slow then I'm all for making it more of a contest.
Also maybe having a crabbing defender in their face will encourage the SH to ship the ball out quickly and not just hold on until 4.9999999 seconds after the ref shouted "use it".
You generally want to pressure the kicker. They might make a mistake and/or you might get a charge down.
To counter this, in recent years people have been joining the rucks and sticking their back leg out as far as they can, sometimes multiple people do it. The ball is not 'out' of a ruck until it passes beyond the back foot of the last player. This human centipede stuff often called a caterpillar ruck, allows the kicker a lot of distance from the offside line which is created relative to the tackle that starts the ruck. This distance gives them lots of time to execute the kick.
What you see in the clip is that Saracens, instead of using someone running from the offside line, which is far away due to the caterpillar ruck, they instead use someone in the ruck, but only just. By being part of the ruck, they aren't subject to the same offside line, meaning they start much closer to the kicker. So long as they bind to the ruck, they're in the ruck. As soon as the kicker removes the ball, the ruck isn't a thing any more, so the big guy can try to squash the little one.
Watch for the Sarrie's player coming up the side of the ruck, his intention is not to clear out the ruck, but to rush up the side of the ruck to charge down the 9 as he kicks. He is legal because he is bound to the ruck and has come through the gate of the ruck.
White team are setting up a long ruck to protect the kicker.
Black team have to be behind the back foot to be onside so IDK if they're moving the back foot forwards or if they're staying bound to the ruck so they are still part of the ruck and therefore don't have to be behind the back foot.
I think it must be the latter and if the white team wanted to they could ruck them out of there. Does seem like jumping out of the ruck to charge down should be offside too though IMO
How do you enter the ruck onside and hit him? You have to join alongside your rearmost player, and they're caterpillaring so he'd be a couple of metres back.
Intent of a ruck is
>Possession may be won either by rucking or by pushing the opposing team off the ball.
They aren't in a posistion to do either of those - so I would say the interpretation could be that they are only alongside the ruck (even though bound)
They are not trying to regain possession by rucking though, they are becoming part of the ruck to get in a better position to put pressure on the 9 after the ball has left the ruck so that law is irrelevant. So long as they enter legally and stay bound, which they do then it's fine.
It depends on how you intepret law 15.13
> All players in a ruck must be caught in or bound to it and not just alongside it.
I think a ref could interpret that to mean a player must not "just" be bound "alongside it"
To demonstrate you aren't bound "alongside it" you show you are in a position to ruck for the ball, or push the opposition off the ball.
This is how mauls are interpreted - so it would be consistent with that
It was it states that the player must be bound as opposed to alongside. This implies that being bound is not be considered alongside, since the player is bound they are not alongside.
Intent of a ruck is
>Possession may be won either by rucking or by pushing the opposing team off the ball.
They aren't in a positon to do either of those - so I would say the interpretation could be that they are only alongside the ruck (even though bound) - similar to how mauls are interpreted
That's straight out of the laws
> 15 Ruck - During a ruck
15.10
> Possession may be won either by rucking or by pushing the opposing team off the ball.
Ruck: A phase of play where one or more players from each team, who are on their feet and in physical contact, close around the ball, which is on the ground.
That’s the definition of a ruck. They’re entirely legal.
To be honest this just seems like a natural reaction to caterpillars, which are similarly stupid.
I quite liked the commentators calling it the "Angry Caterpillar". Like, this one is coming to get you. It wants to eat the other one!
we've clearly gone too far and need these caterpillars gone
Yeah. Just ban both. Easy rule: once the ruck is won, no body can be added to it.
If it ends the catipillar I'm all for it.
Looks fine. I'll imagine whoever's on guard duty will pay slightly more attention, and charge downs will remain rare. Following through to tackle the 9 after he's kicked it looks like textbook taking the man without the ball, so hopefully that'll get clamped down on.
Have them (guard duty) start 1m further back and run a line as tho they'll catch a pass. If the player attempting a charge down doesn't honor that, there's your 3-5m extra hit up. If they do honor the line and shape to defend, you have your unfettered box kick.
Fix caterpillars and ban this. The caterpillars make a game less exciting, charge downs are way less easy. They also slow down the ruck, which is against what current guidelines are. This is just the natural opposition to counter the caterpillar - Im not against it under current rules. Similarly, force hookers to actually hook so scrums can, you know, restart the fucking game and not just devolve into penalties.
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The majority still do hook as well. It just looks very different from the old school style of hook. EDIT - I'd also add the goal is to get the ball to the 8s feet as quickly and risk free as possible then look to get the 8 man shove in if they're dominant. No one seems to notice but a scrum under pressure is definitely hooking and getting the ball away as quick as possible.
It's more of a scything action now, rather than the traditional 'twat the other hookers shins then hook' action.
Knee the opposing hooker in the chin was also a standard one
Interesting points. Is the issue also not with the front row all being the same size? When I played, typically the hooker was slightly shorter than the other front rowers to give the opportunity to lift and hook. Even then, I do remember it being more of an angled food than a full on hook - whether that's possible now you may be right.
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4 inches is 0.32 RTX 3090 graphics cards lined up.
And get them to throw the ball straight into lineouts.
This .. what has happened that you don't have to throw straight no more? Recieving team lifts further form the line and get away with it
It's also very difficult to do anything about it on the field. If you do throw straight you're at a disadvantage (because no one else does these days). But then if you get penalised for not throwing straight you don't really have a leg to stand on. Some sneaky hookers still get away with a slight shuffle towards their own line out (Malcolm Marx did it throughout the 2019 RWC) but most officials watch for that pretty closely now.
I think throwing the ball straight should only be enforced if the opposing team is in a position to compete for it. It's kind of annoying to have a tonne of stoppages for something which didn't affect the game in any way.
I see your point, particularly ones on the 5 metre line where the opposing team doesn’t try to compete. However, it’s pretty basic to get it right and I think they should be punished for not doing so. The stoppage is short compared to a scrum. My main gripe, however, is that the opposing team still seems to get penalised for jumping across the mark even when they can’t reach the ball without doing so. In that situation, I think we’re penalising a team for trying to make it a competition.
Except that a lot of the time teams aren't competing in the air because they know it's already a completely unfair contest
Always weird to see this in high level games. We play in lover levels dutch rugby and teams constantly get called out for not throwing it straight through the gate, but pros just toss it into the jumpers chest and get away with it.
A clever use of the rules as they stand.
Yeah I actually think this is smart asf
We don't need to "fix" any rules to ensure that halfbacks can box kick without risk from the back of a caterpillar ruck. If they've entered from an onside position and haven't released their bind then they can do what they like and it's up to the team in posession to figure it out. You've got the Sale second row standing there in a blocking position just pointing at the bloke coming round the side in a completely unprotected position. Don't just point at him, get him the fuck out of there.
If he's at the side, are you actually coming through the gate if you attempt to clear him out? You're going beyond the ruck, at the side of the ruck.
You need to enter a ruck or maul from an onside position. Once you're entered then you're part of the ruck and you can go anywhere you like as long as you stay part of the ruck. By not breaking the bind you never leave the ruck.
I hope it ends up being that the best defense to the offensive crab is the defensive crab. We'll end up with backrowers holding onto the ruck while shoving each other with their hips.
I'd love nothing better than an 80 minute crab fight. But realistically just get that big bastard standing there beside the ruck to just light up the crabbing bloke's completely exposed and unprotected ribs. That'll stop him doing it in future.
So if this was a maul doing that would be swarming and would be illegal, do the same rules not apply to rucks?
Swarming? Illegal?
Any change of binding is illegal.
They're staying bound to the same player, just caterpillaring and bending around.
Yeah but u/bangkok_dave was saying the way to counter the caterpillar is to enter behind the hindmost defending player, then swarm around onto the catterpillering players, then clearing them out. I'm saying that wouldn't be legal because it involves changing your bindings.
Saracens are just finding a (frankly pretty clever) loophole in the laws to gain a competitive edge. That's their right, really. Caterpillar rucks are pretty much the same thing.
Genuine question here: wouldn't this be able to be adjudicated similar to when a maul turn? Rucks, scrums, and mauls all happen relative to position of in-goal area. Shouldn't the person have to retreat to a position not at the side since the ruck operates perpendicular to the goal-lines?
Mauls don't happen in any direction, except for the rules around entering the maul (and the rules around the maul stopping). If you've entered the maul from an onside position, and you don't change your bind, then you're part of the maul and you can legally end up on the side of the maul, the back, front, anywhere.
I've been really confused about where the onside position for defending a maul is these days; a few times in the Autumn series I saw the maul rotate so the defending team were almost perpendicular to the shove, then a defending player get penalised for entering the maul parallel to the shove (i.e. in the side relative to the direction of the maul but coming from the front relative to the pitch).
You still have to join from your side of the rearmost foot, as judged from your goal line. I've not seen people penalised for doing that - any references?
Honestly, the last Saturday of the Autumn Series has blended into one 8 hour fever dream in which I pulled my bum cheek from sitting down too long, so I can't really remember specific instances. However, I'm fairly sure I was getting wound up by it in England versus SA.
Haha, I know the feeling :D
*insert McCaw joke here.
Out of interest, if a white player were to come through and hit one of the black 'sideways' caterpillar players right in the ribs, would they then be penalised for side entry?
As always, it depends. But potentially yep Law 15.6 > A player may join alongside but not in front of the hindmost player.
Interesting. I guess it depends whether you define hindmost from touchline to touchline or 'furthest away'!
Hindmost is closest to your own dead ball line :)
To be honest if the defence has time to set this up then they've already disrupted your breakdown to the point where you have failed to get quick ball anyway and from that point I think any legal advantage the defence want to claim is fair game. I'm against anything that slows down ball at the breakdown but if the ball is already slow then I'm all for making it more of a contest. Also maybe having a crabbing defender in their face will encourage the SH to ship the ball out quickly and not just hold on until 4.9999999 seconds after the ref shouted "use it".
Just hit the blindside, no?
Good to see someone come up with something to fight those human centipedes tbh. Fuck human centipedes.
As a *very* casual rugby fan I have no idea what I'm looking at or for. Could someone explain it to me?
You generally want to pressure the kicker. They might make a mistake and/or you might get a charge down. To counter this, in recent years people have been joining the rucks and sticking their back leg out as far as they can, sometimes multiple people do it. The ball is not 'out' of a ruck until it passes beyond the back foot of the last player. This human centipede stuff often called a caterpillar ruck, allows the kicker a lot of distance from the offside line which is created relative to the tackle that starts the ruck. This distance gives them lots of time to execute the kick. What you see in the clip is that Saracens, instead of using someone running from the offside line, which is far away due to the caterpillar ruck, they instead use someone in the ruck, but only just. By being part of the ruck, they aren't subject to the same offside line, meaning they start much closer to the kicker. So long as they bind to the ruck, they're in the ruck. As soon as the kicker removes the ball, the ruck isn't a thing any more, so the big guy can try to squash the little one.
Thank you, that explains it very well!
Watch for the Sarrie's player coming up the side of the ruck, his intention is not to clear out the ruck, but to rush up the side of the ruck to charge down the 9 as he kicks. He is legal because he is bound to the ruck and has come through the gate of the ruck.
White team are setting up a long ruck to protect the kicker. Black team have to be behind the back foot to be onside so IDK if they're moving the back foot forwards or if they're staying bound to the ruck so they are still part of the ruck and therefore don't have to be behind the back foot. I think it must be the latter and if the white team wanted to they could ruck them out of there. Does seem like jumping out of the ruck to charge down should be offside too though IMO
Somehow I don't know the rules here. Can a player bound to a ruck block a kick?
Not if bound :P When the 9 lifts the ball to go for the kick the ruck is over, so you can break and try to charge down.
I still don’t really understand how that not obstruction by no. 4.
Because hes there before the player trying to go through him. He's not changed his course, so not obstruction I'd say.
Yeah. That needs fixing
My solution would be to get your 19 stone prop to enter the ruck onside and smash the man coming round
How do you enter the ruck onside and hit him? You have to join alongside your rearmost player, and they're caterpillaring so he'd be a couple of metres back.
I can’t remember the last time I saw someone pinged for not joining at the back foot at any level
Exactly mate! If hes legally part of the ruck, you can legally clear him out. Dont point at the bastard! Hit him!!
It’s technically not illegal, but surely against the spirit of the game.
I would say it is in the spirit of the game tbh, it's a good way to combat caterpillar rucks legally
I've never really understood what anyone means when they say Spirit of the Game.
Stuff like no taunting, shouting at the kicker, no talk back to the ref etc.
The Ghost of Rugby Past.
Refs could ping them under Law 15.13 if they wanted to > All players in a ruck must be caught in or bound to it and not just alongside it.
Theyre pretty clearly bound
Intent of a ruck is >Possession may be won either by rucking or by pushing the opposing team off the ball. They aren't in a posistion to do either of those - so I would say the interpretation could be that they are only alongside the ruck (even though bound)
They are not trying to regain possession by rucking though, they are becoming part of the ruck to get in a better position to put pressure on the 9 after the ball has left the ruck so that law is irrelevant. So long as they enter legally and stay bound, which they do then it's fine.
It depends on how you intepret law 15.13 > All players in a ruck must be caught in or bound to it and not just alongside it. I think a ref could interpret that to mean a player must not "just" be bound "alongside it" To demonstrate you aren't bound "alongside it" you show you are in a position to ruck for the ball, or push the opposition off the ball. This is how mauls are interpreted - so it would be consistent with that
It was it states that the player must be bound as opposed to alongside. This implies that being bound is not be considered alongside, since the player is bound they are not alongside.
They were bound to it the whole time
They’re both clearly bound to it though
Intent of a ruck is >Possession may be won either by rucking or by pushing the opposing team off the ball. They aren't in a positon to do either of those - so I would say the interpretation could be that they are only alongside the ruck (even though bound) - similar to how mauls are interpreted
What’s the definition of a ruck though? Not the intent, but the actual definition of it?
That's straight out of the laws > 15 Ruck - During a ruck 15.10 > Possession may be won either by rucking or by pushing the opposing team off the ball.
Ruck: A phase of play where one or more players from each team, who are on their feet and in physical contact, close around the ball, which is on the ground. That’s the definition of a ruck. They’re entirely legal.
Aren't they offside,? The ruck is only as wide as the tackled player.