Place Kick Holders

[Rhondda Rudie]

I understand that holders are allowed to hold the ball in place for place kickers and cannot be given offside if he's lying in front of the ball.However,in the Bath-Stade game the Stade kicker was going for goal and the "holder" was lying there "in case" and was lying in front of the ball without making any contact with it.Surely the holder is offside in such circumstances?

 

[SelimNiai]

I think he would be if he was impeding any charge from the defensive team and/or if the ball hit him either straight off the kick or on any rebound. Not 100% about that though

 

[rallybug]

Law 9.B.2 The kicker's team

(a) All the kicker's team, except the placer, must be behind the ball when it is kicked.

That implies that the placer cannot be marked as offside.

11.1 states that:

11.1 Offside in general play
(a)
A player who is in an offside position is liable to sanction only if the player does one of three things:
Interferes with play or,
Moves forward, towards the ball or
Fails to comply with the 10-Metre Law (Law 11.4).
A player who is in an offside position is not automatically penalised.

So, as long as the person ready to hold the ball doesn't do anything except lie there, I read that as them not being offside.

I could be wrong, naturally...