How does that work then?

Momentum is mass x velocity, and velocity is a speed in a given direction, so how can the ball initially defy something defined by its mass and the direction/speed it's travelling, and i'm not even a physicist.

That said, IIRC, Cummings said that ball was initially flat then drifted forward, which is just another of his "defend the ref at all costs" comments irrespective of what actually happened.

I haven't seen the game, nor can I see any videos linked here, but a ball absolutely cant travel forwards in relation to the pitch but backwards in relation to the players. There's a video out there - a Union one - that explains the momentum rule in an extreme way. The guy runs forwards, throws it back over his head behind him. The ball still moves forward from the point he threw it to where it lands (a few metres IIRC) but you could never argue it was forwards because he literally wazzed it over his head backwards.

As I say, I haven't seen the pass in question but this is more directed at the people who say that if a ball is travelling forwards in relation to the pitch it must be forward.

Thread is going around in circles.

It was a clear forward pass. The inertia of the ball would need a fair amount of forward motion in the first place. William s does not give them much forward motion, so for the ball to travel as it did, it was passed forward.

That Williams played the ref by running forwards once the pass had been made was cleaver play on his part.

Buggered if I know. I'm not a physicist yet.

Not really sure what you were meaning by this bit of your post but it's absolutely correct that a ball being carried by a player has a forward momentum (it has the same velocity as the player running) which factors into its movement when it's passed by the player.

eg, a player could be running forwards at a speed of 3 metres per second. The player than passes the ball backwards relative to his running self with his "hand speed" at 2 metres per second. Compared to the ground, the ball would still be travelling forwards at 1 metre per second despite the player passing it backwards compared to his run.

Anyway, kinda pointless writing this as that total rugby video is an excellent example, especially the clip of the player throwing it backwards over his head.

As for the 'forward pass' from the game that was originally being discussed, personally when watching the game I thought it was a forward pass. It went further forward than you might expect from a player running as he was and I wasn't convinced by his arm movements in the pass.

Fortunately it didn't have any effect on the final score. I also thought Hull scored from a forward pass earlier in the game.