RECENT law changes and proposals clearly aim, in part, at making
lineout play less of a shambles and more productive of quality ball that
might encourage players to handle more often.
The legislators could have gone further. They could have legalised
lineout lifting, especially as nowadays colleagues may stand as close
together as they wish provided the two opposing lines are a clear metre
apart.
It has been surprising that lineouts so far are still being widely
spaced, as they had to be until this season. Naturally, a lofty, but not
bulky, specialist like Doddie Weir functions most effectively in space
where he can fairly utilise his height, reach and jump, not to mention
his guile in hoodwinking opponents as to where and how he will leap.
It certainly is easier for opponents to nobble a more gifted
specialist in the closer confines of a squashed line. Which is why one
expected to see sides not too well equipped for contesting lineouts
standing close together so that at least they might be able to give
their jumpers a bit of lift support to which, in my view, referees
should turn a tolerant eye. After all, many of them do so in relation to
squint insertions to scrummages, and to players being taken out when
they do not have the ball.
A problem for referees is how to adjudicate on lifting. English
officials apparently hold the view that if the support player has an
open hand on his jumper's shorts that is legal, but if the fists are
clenched, that is illegal. Others feel that hands on the jersey are
acceptable, hands gripping shorts are not. Nor is the aim of forcing
support players to observe the metre spacing until the ball has been
touched proved successful so far. Old habits die hard.
There even is difference of opinion over what the punishment for
lifting should be. Prior to the recent Test matches in South Africa,
Sandy MacNeill (Australia) and David Bishop (New Zealand), after some
early difference of view, agreed that lifting would be a penalty kick
offence. In the northern hemisphere, referees are awarding a free kick.
The law states that before the ball has been touched, no player may
push, charge, shoulder, or in any way hold another player of either team
(penalty kick), nor use any other player as a support to enable him to
jump for the ball (free kick).
According to southern hemisphere referees, if you lift your jumping
colleague you concede a penalty kick, but if you use a colleague or an
opponent as a lever to aid your jump you concede a free kick. Clearly,
the legislators hope to eliminate levering on an opponent's shoulder by
insisting in law that, in jumping for the ball, a player must use both
hands or his inside arm to catch or deflect. Great lineout practitioners
such as Gordon Brown, Alastair McHarg, and Bill Hunter must be wondering
what the game is coming to.
My own observations suggest that ball of better quality is more
frequently on offer when jumpers are given some assistance in going
upwards. Having seen live all five All Blacks games on their recent tour
to South Africa and, on television, those played also by the Australians
there, I was impressed by the amount of two-handed catching by South
African lineout specialists and the wider range of subsequent options
that were available.
Clearly, South African referees have opted out of the lifting clause
so that lineout men and their supports have made an art form of lifting
and, at times, of actually suspending the jumper until he has done his
bit. Nor did this eliminate that quick ball from the top of the jump. It
simply meant that instead of providing deflected ball which frequently
put scrum halves or sweepers under severe pressure, especially in
northern hemisphere winter conditions, the South Africans caught and, in
virtually the same instant, flicked the ball two-handed to the
recipient. The quality was higher, the speed of delivery off the top
almost as quick.
Naturally, the New Zealanders took a dim view of their opponents
getting away with illegalities -- as if the All Blacks, for years, have
not compressed lineouts illegally to leave their own jumper virtually
unmolested. What niggled them most was that the South African
specialists had so perfected the art of lifting as to bring benefit to
their own teams and, even more important, to providing a quick restart
to playing action.
Of course the provincial games were refereed by South African
officials. But, prior to the Tests, MacNeill and Bishop made it known
that they would be strict in penalising lifting, which proved
frustrating to the Springboks whose deflecting was not on a par with
their supported catching.
One other benefit of legalising lifting would be to take some pressure
off referees. There is a very fine line between legality and illegality.
Also, if support forwards are engaged in giving their jumpers more
height they are not getting up to something much more against the
spirit.
In five Scottish games this season, one of the most impressive bits of
lineout play was when Robbie Brown (Melrose) rose like a pheasant to
take ball as clean as a whistle in both hands for South against
Leinster. One has high regard for the impressive utility value and
resolve of that admirable son of Greenyards. But that, for sure, was
some lift-off!
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