Touch Judge and Referee in Rugby: Law 6

The match organiser appoints the referee. If nobody has been appointed, the two teams agree on a referee, and if they cannot agree, the home team chooses one.

If the referee cannot finish the match, the replacement is chosen as the match organiser has instructed. If the organiser has given no instructions, the referee picks the replacement. If the referee is unable to, the home team picks one.

The referee runs the coin toss. One captain tosses the coin and the other calls. The captain who wins chooses either to kick off or to pick an end. If they pick an end, the other team must kick off, and the other way round.

The match officials must check that the players' clothing and studs meet Law 4. They must also check which front-row players are available and their status, so that the front row complies with Law 3.10 and with the Law 19 process for engaging at the scrum.

Inside the playing enclosure:

• (a) During the match, questions of fact and law are judged only by the referee and the other appointed match officials. They must apply the laws fairly in every match.
• (b) The referee keeps the time, though the match organiser may appoint a time-keeper to signal the end of each half.
• (c) The referee keeps the score.

The referee decides when players and replacements may come onto the playing area, and lets them on when it is safe.

Players need the referee's permission to leave the playing area. A player may still, without permission, take water from their own technical area, or go behind the dead-ball line for water after a try has been awarded.

The referee carries a whistle and blows it:

• (a) To start and to end each half.
• (b) To stop play. The referee may stop play at any time.
• (c) To signal a score or a touchdown.
• (d) To caution or send off a player, and again when the penalty or penalty try is then awarded.
• (e) When the ball becomes dead, except after a missed conversion.
• (f) When the ball becomes unplayable.
• (g) When awarding a penalty, free-kick or scrum.
• (h) When letting play go on would be dangerous, or when a player may be seriously injured.

The referee treats the ball as dead when:

• (a) It is in touch or touch-in-goal, except when a quick throw is allowed.
• (b) It is grounded in in-goal.
• (c) A conversion has been kicked.
• (d) A try, penalty goal or dropped goal has been scored.
• (e) The ball or the ball-carrier makes contact with the dead-ball line or with anything past it.
• (f) The ball strikes something above the playing area.

When the referee or another non-player is touched by the ball or the ball-carrier and neither team gains from it, play goes on. If the contact gives either team an advantage in the field of play, the team that last played the ball gets a scrum.

When the ball-carrier runs into the referee or another non-player in in-goal, and this gives either team an advantage:

• (a) If an attacking player has the ball, the referee awards a try at the place of contact.
• (b) If a defending player has the ball, the referee awards a touchdown at the place of contact.

If the ball itself is touched by the referee or another non-player in in-goal, or hits an object in in-goal, the referee decides what would have happened next. The referee then awards a drop-out, a try or a touchdown at the place of contact.

The referee may consult the assistant referees on matters within their own duties, on the foul play law and on timekeeping. The referee may also ask them for help with other parts of the referee's job.

The referee may change a decision after a flag has gone up for touch or touch-in-goal, or after an assistant referee's signal for foul play.

The match organiser can appoint a television match official (TMO). The TMO uses technology to clarify:

• (a) Whether the ball was grounded in in-goal.
• (b) Touch or touch-in-goal while the ball was being grounded or made dead.
• (c) Whether a kick at goal was successful, when there is doubt.
• (d) Possible infringements in the playing area that the match officials believe led to a try or stopped one being scored.
• (e) Foul play, including the sanction.

Any match official, the TMO included, may recommend a TMO review. Reviews are carried out under the TMO protocol.

After the match, the referee gives the score to both teams and to the match organiser.

When a player has been sent off, the referee must report the foul play in writing to the match organiser as soon as possible.

Every match has two assistant referees or two touch judges. If they have not been appointed by the match organiser, or under its authority, each team supplies one touch judge.

The match organiser may name a stand-in for the assistant referees or touch judges. This reserve touch judge or reserve assistant referee waits in the perimeter area.

The referee is in charge of the assistant referees and touch judges, can set out their duties and can overrule their decisions. The referee may ask for an unsatisfactory touch judge to be replaced. A touch judge the referee considers guilty of misconduct can be sent off by the referee, who then reports it to the match organiser.

One assistant referee or touch judge works on each side of the ground. They stay in touch at all times, apart from kicks at goal, for which they stand in in-goal behind the posts.

An assistant referee may come onto the playing area to report foul play, but only at the next stoppage and with the referee's permission.

Every assistant referee and touch judge has a flag, or a similar object, for signalling decisions.

For a kick at goal, an assistant referee or touch judge takes up a position at or behind each post. They raise their flags to show a goal when the ball passes over the crossbar between the posts.

Signalling touch works like this:

• (a) The flag goes up once the ball, or a player carrying it, has crossed into touch or touch-in-goal.
• (b) The assistant referee or touch judge stands where the throw-in should be taken and points to the team that is entitled to throw in.
• (c) The flag comes down when the ball is thrown in, except when: (i) the thrower steps onto the field of play while throwing; (ii) the team not entitled to the throw has taken it; or (iii) at a quick throw, a different ball is used, or the ball was touched after going into touch by anyone other than the player who carried it there or the player throwing it in.
• (d) The referee, not the assistant referee or touch judge, decides whether the throw was taken from the right place.

Signalling foul play works like this:

• (a) The match organiser may authorise assistant referees to signal foul play.
• (b) To show they have seen foul play or misconduct, an assistant referee holds the flag out flat, pointing across the field at right angles to the touchline.
• (c) After signalling foul play, the assistant referee stays in touch and carries on with every other duty until play next stops.
• (d) If the referee then invites it, the assistant referee may come onto the playing area and report the offence. The referee then takes whatever action is appropriate.
• (e) If the assistant referee's spoken report leads to a sending-off, the assistant referee writes a report on the incident for the referee as soon as possible once the match is over, and the referee passes it on to the match organiser.

First-aid or immediate (pitch-side) care staff with the right training and accreditation may come onto the playing area to treat injured players whenever it is safe.

• (a) Up to two medics, one on each side of the pitch, may follow play.
• (b) These medics may carry water, and give it only to a player they are treating.
• (c) Medics may not field or touch a ball that is live.

Sanction: Penalty, taken where play would have restarted.

These people may come onto the playing area, as long as they do not interfere with play:

• (a) Two nominated water carriers, during a stoppage for an injured player or after a try has been scored. The hot weather guidelines may justify a two-minute break in each half.
• (a)(i) In elite rugby, water carriers may only come on when the referee has made the ball dead for a long stoppage (such as an injury or a TMO review) or when a try is scored. The scoring team's carriers go to an area on or near the 10-metre line in that team's own half. The non-scoring team may take water into in-goal or collect it from behind the dead-ball line. All water carriers must go off when the conversion is taken.
• (a)(ii) No water carriers may come on at a penalty try.
• (a)(iii) If no try has been scored, players should get water only at a natural stoppage, in a neutral spot on the pitch. When that stoppage is for an injury, the water carriers must leave the pitch when the medic does.
• (a)(iv) Players may collect water from the technical zone, or from behind their own dead-ball line. Leaving water in in-goal means this right is taken away.
• (a)(v) A head coach or director of rugby may not be a water carrier.
• (b) A tee carrier: one person bringing just a kicking tee and a single water bottle for the kicker, once a team has said it will kick at goal or after a try. The tee carrier has to be one of the two nominated water carriers.
• (c) Coaches, to see their teams at half-time.
• (d) All of these people must stay in their technical area until they are allowed on as set out above. Nor may they field or touch the ball while it is live, even from inside the technical area.

Sanction: Penalty, taken where play would have restarted.

No additional person should go up to, speak to or direct comments at the match officials. The only exception is medical staff talking about the treatment of their own player.

The match organiser may hand the management of replacements to sideline managers it appoints. Guidance on sideline management is on World Rugby's officiating website (officiating.worldrugby.org).