It seems that the Italian rugby federation have formally queried the kick off actions of their South African opponents last weekend, as well as most other rugby watchers. World Rugby have replied in the form of a law clarification to confirm that if this is ever repeated, and a team deliberately infringes kick-off or restart laws, in order to benefit from a resulting scrum, then this should be dealt with under 9.7a. That states that a player “must not intentionally infringe any law of the game.”
It’s pretty clear that that’s what happened, indeed Springbok coach Rassie Erasmus confirmed it post-game. But (and we assume) with no pre-game check with referee Andrew Brace, it caught the official unawares and he correctly offered the Italians the choice of a scrum or re-kick for what he saw. If you watch the clip, you can see him check on runners behind him and as he turns back, the ploy is already in action. Prior to the weekend, no match official would likely to have considered that as a possibility to happen at the very first kick off at a match.
Clip here: (sorry it’s on X…)
The clarification makes clear that:
“The actions seen in this example show an intentional violation of the kick-off and restart laws.
“Laws 12.5 and 12.6 set out the sanctions where the ball unintentionally fails to go 10m or a player overruns their teammate at the kick-off/restart. However, if match officials believe this is done deliberately, then Law 9.7a should be applied.”
Full clarification here: World Rugby Passport – Clarification 2-2025
