Mental Error

[Adam]

Here's a hypothetical:

In a scrum for the ball, B1 fouls A1 and the official has a patient whistle on it, but gets it. After the players are sorted out, he reports the foul….. On A1, then gives the ball to A for a throwin. Let's just say he lost focus for a moment.

A takes the ball down and throws it out of bounds. The table then calls the official over to inform him he gave the ball to the wrong team following the previous foul. He tells the table it's too late to fix it, and just cops to the error. No big deal.

Over the next few minutes, however, he thinks about the play and realizes the mistake was not in who got the ball. The mistake was made when he reported the foul on A1 rather than B1. Here's the question: How late is too late to fix this?