Hands in - or not?

Pre-season is over - let battle commence in the leagues, starting with a trip to Berkshire in the renamed National Three south West on Saturday, followed by short jaunt to Wellington on Sunday.

But, is it any wonder that we as officials get more than our fair share of gob from the sidelines when - try as we might to referee to the latest directive from the iRB - even coaches (not all I admit) don't know the latest missives from on high?

Take this weekend, for example. A competitive pre-season trial game between two level 8 clubs.
Before the game (and bear in mind the league season is six days away) I mention to the coaches "are you happy with the latest directive about handling in the ruck post tackle?"

The response was "I thinks so. What was it again?" Now, it's pretty fair to say that the new directive will not be the easiest to interpret at our lowly levels, so you can be sure that when the season starts there will be a few people screaming "hands in ref", when in fact they are oblivious to the iRB's directive.

It would appear a great many coaches, and therefore players, won't have a clue about this latest ruling.

And even on Friday when I had the pleasure of covering Bath v Scarlets in a pre-season friendly at The Rec, the somewhat rather dull cries from the ill-informed rang out about "hands in".

In a nutshell, at the tackle, an arriving player (on his feet) can play the ball with his hands. When a defender makes contact and a ruck is formed, he is still allowed to go for the ball, whereas previously he (and the defence) would have to take their sticky paws off it.

Even on Sunday when refereeing a league club in a charity 7s tournament a player questioned me on this pearl of wisdom: Player - "ref, feeding's allowed in 7s isn't it?" Me - "excuse me, are you kidding?" Player - "No, no I'm not. I'm sure I was told it was OK."

He wasn't joking either. Lord help us all.

Still confused? Visit www.irb.com and see the light.