I think the draw was correct. The balls seemed to represent a 4 panel rugby ball and the way in which it was held to the camera simply showed the top of the number which was refracted along the seam between two of the panels giving the effect of a line!

Unless my eyes are wonky, even after you've 'flattened' the ball, the '9's still look different from the first & last photos on your slide. The bottom tail of the digit doesn't look similiar at all.

I was commenting on the shots as a whole. Obviously they aren't identical but I wouldn't expect them to be given one is a distorted screen grab from a pixellated TV screen and the top and bottom areas seem to be distorted by the joins in the "panels" of the ball; they are not at the same angle; and they are taken in completely different lighting conditions.

At first I wondered why the underline seemed to be absent from the TV grab, but it in fact actually seems to be obscured by the "next panel", but on close examination a dark blue shape in the correct spot can be made out.

Don't forget in both cases you are looking through the ball onto the back surface. I don't know why the balls were made that way but they were.

All I was looking for was whether I could find any evidence that might support a "different ball theory" and if I had, I would have posted that too, I didn't and don't have any agenda here and am no fan of the RFL, but I personally can't find any such evidence on the limited materials available.

Oh and I'm bored with this thread now so won't be posting any more.

And the missing dot next to the 9?

I don't have a clue if the draw was messed up or not, the evidence is completely inconclusive; the balls the RFL later posted a picture of do seem to be different than the ones used for the draw, that was a silly move on their part.

Which begs the question, where would they get another set from so quickly? And why not use them in the first place if they're clearer?

They weren't aesthetic enough to be shown on TV? #RFLsense