Florida Rugby Referee Association Directive

Preamble: The new Season is about to commence and at your first prematch talk with the participating teams, the inevitable question will arise. “When do you consider the ball out of the scrum and ruck Ref?” The question they are really asking is. “When is the scrum or ruck over?”

As Referees, we all need to be giving them the same parameters.

At a Scrummage.
If the scrum half puts one hand on the ball. The scrum is over, and the offside laws no longer apply.

This then means that players may break from the scrum, and for non scrum participants, advance from the 5 meter ELV offside line. However, no player may tackle or attempt to tackle the scrum half since he does not yet have possession of the ball, and similarly, even if he puts two hands on the ball he cannot be tackled until he picks up the ball and by definition “Has Possession.”

Under usual circumstances, if the scrum half does put one hand on the ball, it is immediately followed by the second hand, then picked up and played in rapid succession, so the ball then gets back into play smoothly, which is the main purpose of the scrummage.

Philosophically. The reason for the “One hand on, scrum is over.” Is that it is a very structured occurrence in the game itself and before putting the ball into the scrum the team has a plan for how they will play it when it emerges. They also have in most cases, very fundamental control of the ball throughout the scrummage process, so it makes absolute sense to use this parameter so that the referee and the players have a precise point at which the scrummage offside laws no longer apply.

At a Ruck.
If the scrum half puts two hands on the ball. The ruck is over, and the offside laws no longer apply.

As in the scrummage, the scrum half cannot be tackled until he has possession, and since putting two hands on the ball is usually part of the rapid succession of picking it up and playing it, there should no problem in getting the ball recycled and into play.

Philosophically. The reason for “Two hands on, ruck is over.” Is that a ruck is considerably less structured than a scrum and as it occurs, players are constantly figuring their options and making their strategy decisions in milliseconds. The ball, which may be clearly won by one side, could be half buried under a player’s leg, and we may even want the scrum half to dig it out to enable rapid recycle. if under those or similar circumstances, when the scrum half uses one hand to position the ball ready for his next move we considered the ruck over, we would lose the space created by the offside lines and opportunity would be lost. So here it makes absolute sense that two hands on the ball make it the precise point at which the ruck offside laws no longer apply.

New suggested game management tool.
Two of our referee membership have suggested that we utilize a flat hand signal at the scrummage to keep the non participating scrummage players back at the ELV 5 meter offside line until the scrum is over the same as we already use at the lineout for non participants.

At this point it is a suggestion. However, we would ask that you utilize it, and if this proves to work as effectively as it does at the lineout, we will incorporate it into our game management arsenal as a requirement in the future.

Terry Day
President FRRA and Laws Committee Chairman

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