Forward passes

[wibble]

Genuine question, Not being a jerk, actually think your grasp of the maths is pretty good so I'm curious if you have the answer (which I don't)

Does your method account for the velocity of the hands moving in the opposite direction? I.e. If the hands move faster backwards than the player moves forwards it would reduce how acute the angle would need to be? Or is this not a factor that needs to be considered?

The initial velocity of the ball, other than from running (the "speed" of the pass), is all I considered. I can't think of how that could be generated other than by moving the hands.

It is true that the angle could be smaller if the ball is thrown harder. I don't know what the practical limit to pass speed from either a throwing or catching perspective is, but I've taken a ball going at 10 m/s (fastest sprint speeds) or about 36 km/h.

This is roughly close to the speed I see the ball being thrown in general play, but it is certainly thrown harder sometimes. So that is a 4th possible "compensation", but I assume at about 10 m/s the ball is generally thrown close to it's practical fastest if the pass is to be accurate and a catch is to be made.

 

[kbw]

Or throw a tennis up in car at 100.

both this and the plane analogy are flawed, unless you are flying on a single flat wing or driving in a car without walls or roof.

The air inside the std plane or car is moving at the same speed as the car / plane.
The air on the field is not moving at the same speed as the player.

 

[wibble]

I'm just saying it's not as impossible as its claimed here with all the maths equations, trigonometry and "90 metre" backlines.

Fair enough.


Bernoulli principle



It was flat in absolute terms - but yeah it took me a few looks to check that out.

Yeah, it's already been said but spin affects trajectory during flight (as does wind) but not the initial condition of if the ball is going forward or not (well, it does indirectly in that to impart spin uses some energy that could otherwise be used to launch the ball backwards faster), and the pass from the video, while lovely, involved very little forward momentum from running.

Players often run sideways to throw wide passes as their running then helps the ball go further sideways.

But you are right, it is not impossible to throw a ball so it does not go backwards. It is all about the angle thrown, the running speed, and the pass speed. Most (?) dummy half passes go backwards because there is only the angle thrown to consider.

But the game would be very different if players had to throw the ball at greater angles (requiring much deeper backlines) or much harder (think of how awesome our completion rate would be then!) or only after slowing up or running sideways. Tries from supporting line breaks would be extremely difficult.

 

[Life's Good]

Sorry, just catching up and haven't read all pages. Is this about the merge still crying over not being able to win a game with a 40% better completion rate and lopsided penalty count?

No. Started by a Sharky, derailed by a couple of Che Guvera revolutionaries and now being saved by the collective intelligence of several physics geniuses who no doubt have ink stains on their shirt pockets.
Clear now??

 

[Eion]

No. Started by a Sharky, derailed by a couple of Che Guvera revolutionaries and now being saved by the collective intelligence of several physics geniuses who no doubt have ink stains on their shirt pockets.
Clear now??

Cheers man. That could describe most threads...

 

[veggiepatch1959]

Has there ever been an instance where a try has been "scored" where a player has thrown a ball from the field of play and the support player catches the ball in goal a metre in front of the ball thrower?

If so, was it deemed a forward pass?

If a forward pass was called, all you with your "backwards out of the hands" and "it drifted forward" arguments can go take a hike.

All I can say is that any pass thrown that is propelled forward of parallel to any cross field line is forward.

FORWARD! Got it yet?

 

[GAZF]

both this and the plane analogy are flawed, unless you are flying on a single flat wing or driving in a car without walls or roof.

The air inside the std plane or car is moving at the same speed as the car / plane.
The air on the field is not moving at the same speed as the player.

Drag is a factor but the main point is inertial vs "static" frames of reference. A ball thrown from an inertial frame of reference (running player) will hold that inertia component at the point of release and at least influence the movement of the ball in that direction with respect to a static frame (field).

Drag will add to, subtract from, or do nothing to (if perpendicular) the ball's inertia.

 

[wibble]

Has there ever been an instance where a try has been "scored" where a player has thrown a ball from the field of play and the support player catches the ball in goal a metre in front of the ball thrower?

If so, was it deemed a forward pass?

If a forward pass was called, all you with your "backwards out of the hands" and "it drifted forward" arguments can go take a hike.

All I can say is that any pass thrown that is propelled forward of parallel to any cross field line is forward.

FORWARD! Got it yet?

This happens all the time in tries, especially off line breaks,and no one bats an eyelid (not even you, The_Shield or T-Boon). Sometimes 3 or 4 passes in a movement travel over a line like this. And no one cares because the support players are comfortably behind the player throwing the ball, and often comfortably still behind the player after the catch as they both keep running.

Has it happened on the try line? Possible, but unlikely, as if there is a defensive line, the ball would travel in to them, and if there isn't and someone is running near full speed, they will likely score without having to pass.

But it quite possibly would be pulled up. Quite a few "forward passes" get pulled up at the 10 metre line for this reason when they aren't forward passes. It is an annoyance in the game.

Not only do you blokes not know the rules or not think about how these are the only possible rules, plenty of us get a bit confused over the issue. We say "5 m forward" or "floated forward" like these terms have any relevance to any rules, but they don't.

Braith Anasta in commentary a few weeks ago said of a pass that it should have been ruled a forward pass because it "floated forward" even though it was "backwards out of the hands", which is of course dead wrong by the rules. And he is a commentator, AND he was a first grade player (Origin even) playing as a ball distributor. To think he could get it wrong shows that it is tough to understand.

But there is NO OTHER INTERPRETATION that would allow us to have a game worth watching.

 

[dangerousdave]

Drop the same apple in a passenger plane travelling at 750 kph and you don't see it travel to the back of the plane at that speed.

Just saying....

Or throw a tennis up in car at 100.

Internal frame of reference.

 

[POPEYE]

I've seen a player washed overboard off a tugboat we hired and the next wave dropped him back on . . . motion can do funny things

 

[KeepingTheFaith]

Has there ever been an instance where a try has been "scored" where a player has thrown a ball from the field of play and the support player catches the ball in goal a metre in front of the ball thrower?

If so, was it deemed a forward pass?

If a forward pass was called, all you with your "backwards out of the hands" and "it drifted forward" arguments can go take a hike.

All I can say is that any pass thrown that is propelled forward of parallel to any cross field line is forward.

FORWARD! Got it yet?

It's sorcery! All sorcery! Burn them to the stake dagnabbit!

 

[AlwaysGreen]

Give em cars to drive on the feild and you'll getter a better idea

Except papalli.

 

[myrrh ken]

I understand the concept, throw a football out of the back of a ute going 50. It ain't going backwards

Need to shoot it out of a cannon if its going at 60mph.

 

[ByronTitan]

Has there ever been an instance where a try has been "scored" where a player has thrown a ball from the field of play and the support player catches the ball in goal a metre in front of the ball thrower?

If so, was it deemed a forward pass?

If a forward pass was called, all you with your "backwards out of the hands" and "it drifted forward" arguments can go take a hike.

All I can say is that any pass thrown that is propelled forward of parallel to any cross field line is forward.

FORWARD! Got it yet?

Say it all you want but it wont be Rugby League you'll be talking about. That game has different rules.

 

[veggiepatch1959]

OK. So it looks like if the support player is behind or level with the ball thrower at the time of release, the ball can go as forward as much as it likes.

Otherwise the support player would be offside anyway. Same as kicks in general play.

I get it now.

 

[veggiepatch1959]

Say it all you want but it wont be Rugby League you'll be talking about. That game has different rules.

What game is that?

American "football"?

 

[rockcod]

Blatant forward passes can be picked up within the first meter or so of the ball travel, the point is when the pass is thrown it must be projected flat or backwards from the point of release, relative to the goal line. Backwards out of the hands doesn't mean much because sometime a player turns and passes forwards from the hands in a backwards direction.

As long as the ball is projected in a rearward direction that is is all the player can control, if momentum of the ball, a cyclonic gust of wind or the shock wave from a loud speaker affects the flight of the ball it is all irrelevant.

 

[GAZF]

OK. So it looks like if the support player is behind or level with the ball thrower at the time of release, the ball can go as forward as much as it likes.

Otherwise the support player would be offside anyway. Same as kicks in general play.

I get it now.

As a rule of thumb, yes. But a receiver could accelerate or just be running faster than the passer to catch a ball thrown forward out of the hands.

 

[Apey]

This happens all the time in tries, especially off line breaks,and no one bats an eyelid (not even you, The_Shield or T-Boon).

That's the underrated part of the thread. They don't even know what they're arguing. As I said earlier, they really mean to distinguish between passes that "look backwards" and "look forwards"; otherwise Benji's flick pass is forward in their rulebook.

 

[wibble]

Blatant forward passes can be picked up within the first meter or so of the ball travel, the point is when the pass is thrown it must be projected flat or backwards from the point of release, relative to the goal line. Backwards out of the hands doesn't mean much because sometime a player turns and passes forwards from the hands in a backwards direction.

As long as the ball is projected in a rearward direction that is is all the player can control, if momentum of the ball, a cyclonic gust of wind or the shock wave from a loud speaker affects the flight of the ball it is all irrelevant.

Yes, if the ball is going "forward" relative to the ground, it is doing that right from the moment it leaves the hand, so it isn't really "backwards" out of the hands (just the hands are going forwards faster than the ball). And I agree it is even more misleading to say "backwards out of the hands" because the direction the hands are facing shouldn't actually matter (except how they affect the difficulty of getting the pass to go "backwards").

It is really only important that the ball is going less forwards than the player (regardless of the direction the hands are facing) at the time of release, but that would be a horrible thing to try to say and would infuriate people further, so the position of the support is a better "guide".

That's the underrated part of the thread. They don't even know what they're arguing. As I said earlier, they really mean to distinguish between passes that "look backwards" and "look forwards"; otherwise Benji's flick pass is forward in their rulebook.

Yep. There is a youtube video (don't know how to link it) of "Best Rugby League Tries" that shows a Bowen flick pass. He flicks it directly behind him, to a player directly behind him, running at near full speed, which is impressive. But he does it right over a line on the field and you can see that even in a short flick the ball goes forward over the line a small amount, but no one would ever want that sort of pass called forward, or that sort of play banished from the game (there is another perfectly legal, regular pass from the break to a support player earlier in the movement that also goes forward due to the passing player's momentum, and no one would think it is forward either).