Held Ball criteria

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What the rules don't say is as important as what they exactly specify. Held ball is a great example. "4-25: .. opponents have their hands so firmly on the ball that control cannot be obtained without undue roughness." Because the rules specify hands (plural), there can be no held ball when one or both opponents have a single hand firmly on the ball (other than a blocked try). But you see it all the time: a scrum on the floor that is clearly going nowhere and the held ball call is prematurely ruled. This year I made it a personal POE to try to be patient to let the held ball develop on its own but sometimes it seemed that to wait for the criteria to be exactly met risked undue rough play and tempers unneccessarily. Perhaps the rules should allow for a held ball call when in the official's judgment the call is inevitable (or nearly so)?