The direction of the pass is the direction the ball travels, everything else is merely the direction the player indicates the pass may travel in, including feints, which are designed to fool defenders (and for which we laud players).

Ditching phoney arguments about physics, in all other aspects of the game direction is judged primarily relative to the ground (and then relative to the movement of players), yet somehow passing isn't, because it makes it tricky to throw flat passes that are really flat whilst running.

They can feint as they're actually releasing the ball? Impressive.

Oh, wait - you've just made that up, haven't you?


You're not getting this at all, are you? In order for the ball to travel backwards in relation to the ground, it has to achieve a net negative velocity relative to the player. This would be reasonably difficult at full pace if throwing directly backwards, but as soon as you factor in a horizontal element it becomes ridiculously hard when moving at anything faster than a gentle jog. You would completely change the character of the game - and for no good reason.


We've actually had a single interpretation that you are spectacularly failing to understand. I'm beginning to think that you're being deliberately obtuse for the sake of trolling.


It doesn't need translating. The rule is fine because it catches genuine forward passes while allowing fast play and recognising simple physics. It's not even in conflict with other rules as you spuriously claim, since all the other rules concerning the direction of travel of the ball make reference to how the ball is [ipropelled[/i - just as the passing rule does.

Nope. The direction of the pass is the direction in which the ball is propelled by the player making the pass.


You don't actually understand physics, do you?

And all directions are actually judged relative to the two try lines. Including passing.

You are, what's his face, Keith Senior's brother and I claim my five pounds.

Can we look forward to your tails of running down a corridor at speed chucking your rolled up overall through a doorway to prove that the momentum of the player passing a ball backwards shouldn't be taken into account?

oh and …



… we're not talking about standing players, but running ones

This is just rubbish, the direction of a pass cannot be determined by looking at the hands of the player, even when the ball is in the process of being released, the direction of the pass is the direction in which it actually does travel, not the direction in which it looks like it might possibly travel if we take a guess at where it's going to go. It's just so incredibly silly to try and argue that because there is a possible indication in the positioning of the player as to the direction the pass might travel in that represents coclusive evidence about how the pass actually is going to travel in, especially when we know that such positioning does not provide conclusive evidence of the direction the pass actually travelled.

All other rules judge direction relative to the ground, if a player kicks a ball up in the air and it goes backwards and lands behind him we don't say "ooh that really went forward because that's the direction the player's boot was facing when he kicked it".

So we go back to the crux of it, it's simpler to fudge passing relative to the ground, than it is to deal with the problems of making genuinely flat passes whilst travelling at speed.

Some fairly simple (and therefore not 100% accurate) maths........
A man running at 10 yds per second (so obviously a quick back) wanting to pass to a man 5 yds outside him judges the ball needs to be thrown 1.5 yds backwards at 10 yds per second to be caught. (A reasonable decision I think all would agree?).
The ball is in the air for approx 5.22 seconds to travel the 5.22 yds to his aim point. In 5.22 seconds it will travel approx. 5.22 yds forward whilst in the air due to his own forward speed. This gives a nett forward travel of 5.22 - 1.5 = 3.72 yards.
Turning your body at full speed to throw further behind you than 1.5 yards over 5 yards is pretty much impossible. (Try it at home)
Therefore if we want running players to pass to other players we have to accept that the direction it leaves the hands is the only arbiter.
That's how it's been for over a 100 years now.

I'm pretty shocked that most people on here seem happy with passes in a forward direction(relative to the marker lines) as long as the thrower can run fast.
As an extreme example, most appear to think that if a player sends out a 30yard pass to the wing whilst crossing the halfway line and the receiver catches the ball on the opponents 40m line, they feel this is fine as long as the passer has continued sprinting beyond the 40m line before it reaches the receiver.
In years gone by this would have always been considered a forward pass, just as it would had it gone only a yard forward. The interpretation has definitely changed-for the worse in my opinion

Nope, our frame of reference is two players in motion.

That's because they understand physics...we live in a world with physical laws.

Nope. That's not the case (except in Stevo's mind)


Nope – that's not the case. The rules of rugby league have always recognised the laws of physics.

To put it simply:

Player A and B are running up the field at 3m/s (actual speeds may vary this is for illustration). Player A passes the ball to player B, who is one meter behind him (and a bit to the side). He imparts a backward velocity to the ball of 1 m/s (plus a lateral velocity which we can ignore for the purposes of this discussion). In the second it takes for the ball to travel from player A to player B, both have travelled three metres further up the pitch. Player B catches the ball 2 metres further up the pitch than where player A passed it from. But he's still 1m behind player A and it's a perfectly legal pass. And so it should be.

Player A passed the ball backwards to a player who's behind him. Within the frame of reference of the two players, it moved backwards at a velocity of 1m/s. Within the frame of reference of the pitch, ball moved forward with a velocity of 2m/s (the momentum of the two players and the ball of 3m/s less the backwards velocity imparted to it by the passing player of 1m/s).

Simple, straightforward (and it still works if the Player A grinds to a halt after passing the ball because he's been tackled) and involving no more than a basic understanding of how the universe actually works. To rule a pass which is perfectly legal and legitimate forward, when a player has passed the ball to a player behind him would be both stupid and unrealistic.

(please note this explanation ignores factors such as the fact that the players (even if standing still), the ball and the pitch are moving at around 1000mph due to the earth's rotation, plus added factors of momentum due to the planet's orbit around the sun, the sun's orbit around the galaxy etc)

Sweet Baby Jeezus... 8.37060546875:10