What can a ref do

[blindsideflanker]

Last year i had my u14's div 2 premiership and in the second half our fly half kicked for space and as i chased it, the ref grabbed my jersey and pulled me back and said "your off side" (i was behind the kicker and was on side but oh well), are refs allowed to do that?
cheers

 

[Scotty]

He can blow for a pen against you or tell you to stop but no i cant see a situation where he's allowed to pull you back,

did he allow play to continue? Maybe his intention was to stop you running on so play could continue. I very much doubt he's allowed to do that.

 

[die_mole]

was the ref also another 14 year old? My only issue is that there was a referee touching a minor.
We see refs tap illegal jacklars on the back every once in awhile to get them to release the ball. At the end of the day he was trying to prevent you from committing a penalty. He was both helping his own stats and helping you from hurting your team. Back in my reffing days I don't think I'd ever touch a player in this situation but I have tapped jacklars and pushed some shoulders to get some pillars onside.

 

[Cruz_del_Sur]

Hi, welcome.
Straight questions deserve straight answers: no, he is not allowed to do that.

Now, having said that, a few considerations. You need to understand the context and why he is doing that. I'll speculate a bit so give me some rope here, but I'm pretty sure my margin of error is small. Whether you were onside or offside is, for the lack of a better word, irrelevant. He thought you were offside and acted on that. He is allowed to be mistaken. Deal with it.

In his mind, he was doing you a favour. He had two options, to penalize you on the spot or to stop you from chasing and allow the play to continue. He chose the latter. Even then he is still wrong as he should have never touched you. Minor cost to keep the game flowing in his mind.

The obvious question becomes, is there anything you can do about it? Very little. You would need to escalate the thing biblically and, let's call a spade a spade, nor worth it.
I understand how frustrating it can be, but one of the biggest lessons you'll learn from the sport is to overcome adverse and unfair situations.
A word from the coach at halftime might help, but it could also backfire. I wouldn't do anything official about this.

 

[BiggusLaddus]

At a similar age, our scrum half once threw a pass straight to the ref. He caught it and passed it out to our centres.

I'm fairly certain they aren't supposed to do that either.

 

[Which Tyler]

At a similar age, our scrum half once threw a pass straight to the ref.

Erm - I may have done that before.

Have we played together?