Law discussion: Should Luke Cowan-Dickie have been awarded a try?
Should Luke Cowan-Dickie have been awarded a try?
In the end it didn’t matter, an excellent Sale Sharks performance ensured their progress to the Premiership play-offs and a tasty match-up against Bath. But had the Sharks not managed their win, this incident would surely have been looked at a little closer.
Cowan-Dickie’s no try
Sale hooker Luke Cowan-Dickie picks off an errant line-out from Saracens and heads for the line. As he reaches out, the ball is dislodged from his grasp, but he does manage to reconnect with the ball as it heads downwards, ensuring that hand, ball and ground (in-goal) are all in contact at the same time. So he justifiably claims a try. Referee Luke Pearce looks at the replay and decides otherwise, saying that, as there was separation from the ball and Cowan-Dickie’s hand, he has knocked on in the process of touching down.
This is a really rough one for all. A knock-on is defined thus:
When a player loses possession of the ball and it goes forward, or when a player hits the ball forward with the hand or arm, or when the ball hits the hand or arm and goes forward, and the ball touches the ground or another player before the original player can catch it.
While scoring a try is defined thus in Law 8.2.a:
A try is scored when an attacking player is first to ground the ball in the opponents’ in-goal.
Infuriatingly, we have to go to Law 21 for what grounding the ball means:
The ball can be grounded in in-goal:
a. by holding it and touching the ground with it; or
b. by pressing down on it with a hand or hands, arm or arms, or the front of the player’s body from waist to neck.
No try for Luke Cowan-Dickie after a TMO review.
Seperation denying him the score. Thoughts? pic.twitter.com/xUk9NNjdNL
— Jared Wright (@jaredwright17) May 19, 2024
Even our initial reaction – and since the incident, also much public support – was for Cowan-Dickie to be rewarded. There is nothing in the law about control of the ball for the grounding, which is what many believe was the problem. The contact between ball, hand and ground has to be simultaneous and there must be downward pressure. Cowan-Dickie has clearly grounded the ball just fine.
But the knock-on law and definition is a little inconsistent, or perhaps doesn’t cover all bases.
The second part would give further support to Cowan-Dickie being awarded the try. The ball has gone forward from hand, but Cowan-Dickie gets his hand back to the ball before it touches either the ground or an opponent. He then grounds the ball legally.
But there are two parts which argue against. The opening sentence of the definition simply says when a player loses possession of the ball and it goes forward, which very clearly happens.
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And the final part of the law says that it is a knock-on when the ball goes forward and the ball touches the ground or another player before the original player can catch it.
Catching it is also something Cowan-Dickie does not do. So although he grounds the ball correctly, the ball touches the ground before Cowan-Dickie catches it – i.e. gets control of it in his hands.
So the decision not to award the try is correct, for having lost the ball while in possession of it, Cowan-Dickie needed to catch it again before grounding it.
Yet it does make the law about grounding the ball a little inconsistent. Certainly in this case it can be argued: which should apply, the knock-on law or the grounding of the ball, which are somewhat at odds with each other here.
It is thought that this incident may lead to a clarification of the laws in the near future about knock-ons in the process of grounding the ball; one that would be worth watching as this is not the first time that such actions have been in the officiating spotlight.
