By Glen Leat
June 19 2002

Offside! How we all shout this at varying times in a match, but do we really understand the basics of this law let alone the letter of it? I doubt it. I hesitate to say this but I find it far easier to spot offside in football than I do rugby and I watch far more rugby than I do football.

So is offside in rugby just too complicated?

As Bath fans we are supposed to know all about the dark art of successfully playing offside with the arch-villain Andy Robinson allegedly playing so far offside he spent most of a game lining up with his opponents, however I rarely spotted Robbo playing in a position which I could swear to being offside. Similarly I bet few Tigers' fans can easily spot Neil "Maradonna" Back playing in front of the back feet. Strangely enough I find it very easy to spot Back's law-breaking though perhaps not quite as easily as I spotted his "Hand of God" impersonation recently.

The strangest part of offside has to be the "accidental offside"ruling. It seems strange in a game based on running in to opponents that a player should be penalised for running in to a team mate - weird!

Surely the whole point of offside in both rugby and football is to give teams an even chance to play fairly and win (or at least not lose) on merit. By making the offside law in rugby so difficult to judge we once again introduce a lottery situation whereby "cheating" players are not spotted, "innocent" players are wrongly penalised and the game as a whole is the loser. Oh the frustration to see your team lose a match though a last gasp penalty because one of the lumbering forwards could not stay upright after 80 minutes of slog, is that what we want from rugby? I don't think so.

There is currently a lot of debate about how lax the referees are in the Super 12 competition; whether you agree with or not you have to admit that this speeds up the game and creates one hell of a lot of excitement. This may not suit the rugby purist but not a lot of grounds will be full next season if restricted to the purist.

If you want to see the actual law of offside then click here. Now imagine you are a referee and you have to apply this law, amongst many others, whilst running around a field chasing 30 fit (sic) sports stars and with a hostile crowd baying at you - maybe you'll give Steve Lander the benefit of the doubt in future. No? I thought not!