Law 12 : DEFINITION OF THROW FORWARD.
A throw forward occurs when a player throws or passes the ball forward. ‘Forward’ means towards the opposing team’s dead ball line.
So, a Law is a Law. Recently at Premiership level, there have been some incidents that might lead you to think otherwise. Most obviously (notoriously) during the Harlequins Bristol game at the beginning of the season when Marland Yarde clearly passed forward to Joe Marchant who then scored. Did the referee consult the TMO? Yes he did, but only on the grounding and not on the forward pass.

Of all the laws of our game this is one of the most fundamental. Simply put if the ball is received in front of the position from where it was passed it is forward and therefore an offence. Blow the whistle. Scrum down. That is why under 7’s are coached to pass backwards. Forget all this nonsense about momentum (which was put forward after the Aussies dug out some obscure Physics academic.) Forget also the position of the player’s hands. There is no offence for the player’s hands moving forward. It’s about the ball stupid!

At Level 5 by and large we give the referee the benefit of the doubt. If his positioning means he cannot make an accurate judgement then we are usually fairly relaxed. Rugby crowds are generally quite fair (generally!)
So how come with the advantage of having 2 touch judges and a TMO with video replay, the top officials appear to be getting it wrong? Are the rest of us who have mostly spent a lifetime watching and playing the game somehow erroneous in our view? I doubt it.

Let’s take the law concerning the put in straight at the scrum.
Law 20.6 The scrum half must throw in the ball straight along the middle line, so that it first touches the ground immediately beyond the width of the nearer prop’s shoulders.

Now come on. When was the last time you saw a professional player penalised for not straight?

There can only be one conclusion. There is collusion amongst the elite level refereeing community to deliberately ignore certain laws of the game.
One of the definitions of corruption is “dishonest action that destroys people's trust”. Ergo, the elite referee community are corrupt. Crikey, I might be putting myself in danger of being sued! Am I scared? No of course not, because the evidence is out there for all to see. We could waste days in court showing video replays of clear examples.

The problem is, where does it stop? Once you start undermining the integrity of the game it starts to crumble. Think of the thousands of coaches around the World diligently teaching youngsters about the Laws of the game and how to apply them. Those same kids then watch a game on TV and see the opposite of what they have been taught. Naturally they then challenge their coaches. Those coaches then find their integrity been undermined also.

It’s a slippery slope and before long maybe one of those ‘interpretations’ might compromise players safety. Already we have decisions about challenges in the air which are based upon the outcome of the collision and not about intent.

I put it to you that the elite refereeing level are the Fifth Column that could seriously damage the integrity of our wonderful game.

They criminalised Emile Zola for his protest on behalf of Dreyfus.
Well go on then do your worst!