Rule Awareness....

Please consider this important excerpt from the 2008 Rules. It's important:

The Finals

As stated all 16 teams will participate in the quarter-finals with the winning and losing teams both advancing to the semi-finals and then onto the final. For this reason certain policies have had to be implemented in regard to the selection of players not permitted to play and to uncontested scrums.

A team that participates in a game in the final that selects a player who under point 2.2 is not permitted to play for an Internal League side will automatically forfeit the opportunity to advance as a victorious team, instead they will advance as the losing side. If both sides field such a player they both will advance as losing sides and the teams in the corresponding match will automatically proceed as winning sides.

If a team doesn’t adhere to the rules under 2.2 in regard to the selection of two front row players on the bench which leads to the requisition of uncontested scrums not through injury that team will forfeit the opportunity to advance as victorious irrespective of the result.

These seemingly harsh rules are in place to ensure that our Internal League is played in the high spirit and regard in which it has traditionally been played whereby the competing teams do so on the level playing field as rugby teams and nothing else.

As with all play-off games the event of a draw will be dealt with in the manner that is in accordance with the IRB and this league. If the scores are tied at full time, in a play off game, extra time will be played.

Extra time will consist of two halves of seven (7) minutes each with a two (2) minute period of half time between them. It will be played according to the Golden TRY rule, whereby the first team to score a TRY during the period of extra time will be declared the winners, and the game will end.

If at the conclusion of the first half of extra time one team has more points than the other, (with no tries having been scored in the first half of extra time) the second half of extra time will be played. The team that is thus leading at the conclusion of both halves of extra time shall be declared the winners.

Should there be no further score after both periods of extra time, OR should the scores be equal, each team will select five (5) members to take penalty kicks at goal. Kicks will be taken on the 22m line, directly in front of the poles. Kicks will be taken by a member from each team of 5 alternatively. Only players having played for some period in the match (either regulation or extra time) will be permitted to take kicks at goal. A toss of the coin will decide which team kicks first and at which end the kicks are taken. At the end of the ten kicks the team with the most successful kicks will be declared the winners. If the teams are level at the end of the ten kicks, the same five kickers from each team will compete in the same order in a sudden death shoot out, whereby the first team successful where their opponents are not will be declared the winners. The kickers will keep kicking until this end is reached.

All of the Final games will have the duration of 25minutes per half.