Loose Pass

This week we will be concerning ourselves with conflicting agendas, consistency in the Six Nations and concerns for England…

This week we will mostly be concerning ourselves with conflicting agendas, conversion values, consistency in the Six Nations and concerns for England…

This business of the Southern Kings in South Africa: we'd be interested to canvass our South African readers' thoughts actually, as the multi-faceted nature of it all begs a local insight.

But from here, it looks as though South African political agendas are, once again, going to have a far bigger influence on a major competition than they ought to.

Fact is, the Kings must have some form of helping hand from on high. The team failed in a bid to get itself promoted from the Currie Cup's second tier,comprehensively outclassed in the final by an excellent Boland team. Yet there are still rumblings around that the Currie Cup Premier Division will soon be reduced to a six-team, Kings-inclusive league, at the expense of the Griquas among others, a travesty.

Despite the Currie Cup failure, SARU has guaranteed the Kings a spot in the 2013 Super Rugby tournament, which means at best the competition will be expanded, at worst, one of South Africa's five established franchises will be giving way. I don't think we'd be giving anything away to say that might cause bloodshed in union boardrooms nationwide.

Yet the arrogance of SARU to assume that, just because they have mis-managed things with this 2013 guarantee and face a likely internal revolt as a result, they'll be able to re-write the structure of the Super 15 to save their own behinds is breathtaking.

Sanzar Chief Greg Peters has already roundly refuted any idea that there'll be a Super 16, with SARU Deputy President Mark Alexander retorting with a mildly delusional: “We still have to meet with our partners in SANZAR. Greg Peters cannot decide there won't be any expansion of the tournament. That was an irresponsible statement to make. There is a window of opportunity with our partners in Sanzar.”

Yet SARU CEO Jurie Roux is a lot more reticent of the matter, saying simply: “I warned the unions about this, but ultimately the decision to defer the matter (of whether and how to fit the Kings into Super Rugby) until March 30 was theirs and they have to live with the outcome.”

Divisions in SARU, hidden agendas, a team propelled from nothing undeservedly into the limelight, disruption to a working model. The whole Kings affair reeks of much that is bad about South Africa at the moment – a shame, for there is so much that is good.

For example, how about the new points experiment in the Varsity Cup? Two for a penalty and a drop goal, five for a try and… three for a conversion?

We're whole-heartedly with the first three, but three for a conversion seems to be overdoing it a bit: it seems that if you take an 8-0 lead with a converted try for example, the opposition would have to earn four kickable penalties just to find parity; more to the point, the team in the lead could give away penalties with impunity.

Two for a conversion works. In fact, two for all kicks at goal works. Keeps it simple too.

Six Nations pass notes:

France – impressive
Italy – good up front, behind that as blunt as ever.
England – no sign of the trough exit
Scotland – see Italy

The best game of the weekend by some distance was the Ireland-Wales clash, fuelled to no little extent by the World Cup hangover on top of the rivalry between the two that has blossomed so over the past decade.

But most of the questions from the weekend regard the officiating. for example, given all the precedent from and since the Sam Warburton affair, how Bradley Davies was still on the Aviva Stadium pitch at the end is a mystery to all but Dave Pearson, as was the extraordinary length of time Jonathan Sexton took with a kick at goal with seven-odd minutes to go – it took nigh on two minutes from initial whistle to boot to ball.

Then there was the TMO decision that quite clearly robbed Scotland's Greg Laidlaw of a try, with the frame-by-frame replay showing the roll of the ball halted by Laidlaw's hand touching it.

We spend good time in this column defending officials, who have a tough job. But the Davies and Laidlaw decisions are indefensible errors.

We are also going to take a look at the Laidlaw one as it concerns a much-debated Law interpretation of a touchdown.

Law 22 (b) – the one concerning grounding a ball in-goal – states: Player presses down on the ball. A player grounds the ball when it is on the ground in the in-goal and the player presses down on it with a hand or hands, arm or arms, or the front of the player's body from waist to neck inclusive.

You will note there that no word mentions that the player must have control of the ball, which is a common misconception. Laidlaw did press – however lightly – downwards, certainly below a horizontal plane, on the ball, with perhaps a thumb and finger, clearly a part of the hand. The ball, as you can see in the slowest-motion replays, ceased to move forward at the moment Laidlaw made contact with it. That it was in contact with the ground is in no doubt. It had to be a try.

And finally, how low can England go? As if grinding out a dire win over a stuttering Scotland wasn't enough, the Saxons, for a long time at least a reminder to many that England have some enviable strength in depth, crashed to a 35-point nilling in Scotland.

Something is amiss in English rugby, that much was obvious. But as to how deep it goes… we may only now be finding out.

Loose Pass compiled by Richard Anderson