James Hill asks...............

Mate my team were have a defensive scrum on the 5mtr line, the half passes back to the 1st 5 who trys to kick it out when he gets charged down and the ball goes dead, what is the ruling here scrum to the attacking team or 22mtr drop out?
Confused

Hi James,

When the ball goes into in-goal and is made dead, there is only one question the referee needs to ask himself "who put the ball into in-goal?"

• If the ball is put into in-goal by an attacker, and then made dead, it is a 22 drop out.
• If the ball is put into in-goal by a defender, and then made dead, it is a 5m attacking scrum.

Who makes the ball dead is irrelevant.  So in your case the defending Scrum half passes the ball back into in-goal; the ball is then made dead (doesn't really matter how); so the result is an attacking 5m scrum.  The kick, the charge down, any passing or running within in-goal are all just red herrings.

This is all covered in Law 22.

Thanks for the question.
The Rugby Ref.