Quote: dr_feelgood "If it was a charge down, surely LMS would have been played on side and hence play on. To me, the player was running at the kicker and thus intended to interfere with the flight of the ball or the ability of the opposition kicker to get his kick away and hence should be play on. We have made too many of the rules open to the refs interpretation of what the defender intended to do. The rules should not be open to this. If you are the last person the ball its before it goes into touch, whether you intended it or not, it should be a scrum to the opposition. If you knock the ball forward as you tackle an attacking player then tough, it's a knock on.
As Sam Allardyce once said about the interpretation on the on side rule in football, if a player isn't influencing play then he souldn't be on the pitch. The same thing goes for defending players in RL.'"
So every last tackle the attacking team run towards the side line and kick it at the defender and stand a better than 50/50 chance of getting the ball back because it's either back to one or it goes in touch and head and feed to the team that kicked it?
Cracking idea!
As for the player "running at the kicker" he was more jogging as part of the defensive line and at no point made any attempt to block the flight of the ball.
He was just stood there, he can't disappear, and as Bilko alluded to earlier what happens if the players leave the kicker alone in fear of giving Back to one and he dummies and scores.
Ridiculous theory as the prime concern has to be to allow the defender to at least attempt to make a conventional tackle without fear of being penalised for something he had no intention of doing.
