Rulebook doesn't back up Bill Harrigan's explanation of Greg Inglis try

BILL Harrigan's explanation for Greg Inglis's controversial try is an amalgam of distantly related rules pulled together to explain the Origin clanger.

BILL Harrigan's explanation for Greg Inglis's controversial try can be revealed as an amalgam of distantly related rules pulled together to explain one of the biggest clangers in Origin history.

Harrigan drew inspiration for his explanation from the 2011 edition of "The Australian Rugby League Laws Of The Game And Notes On The Laws", the latest version.

Amazingly, nowhere in the rules that deal with scoring, "Section 6 Scoring - Tries And Goals", does it deal with the ball being dislodged by the foot of an opposing player, as in Wednesday's case when Robbie Farah's boot knocked the ball free from Inglis as he was falling to score.

Firstly, video referee Sean Hampstead had to presume that Farah was deliberately striking at the ball - otherwise, Harrigan said, it would have been a knock on.

While many argued anyway that Inglis knocked on, Harrigan continually argued through Thursday's press conference that it was a "rebound" and not a knock on.

A knock on, under the ARL Laws glossary, "means to knock the ball towards the opponents' dead ball line with hand or arm, while playing at the ball."

Harrigan's argument suggests Hampstead, responsible for the decision, relied on the final part of the ruling, interpreting that Inglis was not playing at the ball, to award the try.

Many experts, including past Origin and grand final referees, dispute it, saying Inglis was in the act of scoring when the ball dislodged and rebounded into his forearm, and that his arm was doing nothing else but play at the ball.

Yet it gets worse. To justify the ruling, Hampstead then, according to an NRL spokesman, relied on a ruling elsewhere in the rulebook.

Under "Section 11 - Tackle And Play the Ball", and remembering Inglis's touch was now being interpreted as having not played at the ball, Hampstead was able to support his contention that it was not a knock on.

In the Section 11 notes, it states: "A ricochet or rebound does not count as a 'touch'."

To then allow the try, Hampstead has relied on another section in the rulebook to apply the rebound ruling, this time in "Section 9 - Touch And Touch in Goal".

In Section 11, Rule 7, it says "In all aspects of play, a player who does not deliberately play at the ball (eg ricochet or rebound) will not be disadvantaged by a consequent restart of play when the ball has gone dead or into touch".

Having ruled that the Inglis touch was a "rebound", and that a rebound should "not be disadvantaged", video referee Sean Hampstead awarded the try. Yet for the entire explanation to hold water it still remains dependent on the first presumption - that Inglis was not playing at the ball.

From that point, Harrigan's argument about the "rebound" and its merits appear to be convoluted at best, or, at worst, a deliberate exercise to confuse his thinly educated interrogators through jargon and their own lack of rulebook knowledge.

NRL boss David Gallop will ask Harrigan to please explain but might struggle - nothing in the rulebook deals definitively with what happened.

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