Kick or Defer?

[Robert Goodman]

What's the real problem here? Apparently it's a misunderstanding that a team's captain or coach might have about how the choices are determined at each half -- as if the choice given to one team was not simply about the 1st half, but choosing the order of who would kick off for both halves in advance. This is something simple that doesn't even require practice -- that they can learn while sitting in a chair. When you present the choices, the clock isn't running, nobody's tired yet, they haven't taken shots in the head. If it's your job to straighten them out on that, then why wouldn't you confer with them about the consequences of 1 or 2 point tries when that comes up? Sure, it's something simple and you might prevent an error, but it's only one of a great many things like that in the game, and there doesn't seem to be any reason that you should be allowed, let alone expected, to give them advice on this one and not all those others, especially when this one is easier than the others.

[Altor]

Now that I've read the background, what would you do as WH in this sit?

WH: Visitors, you have won the toss.
Vis: We want to kick.
WH: You are deferring, then.
Vis: No, we want to kick.
WH: That means you're deferring.
Vis: Whatever.
WH: Home, you wish to receive?
Home: Since he wanted to kick and we hate him, we want to kick just out of spite!

[CT1]

Originally Posted by Robert Goodman

What's the real problem here?

The "problem", if you want to call it that, is that when a team's choice is to defer, they know that they're going to be kicking off to start the first half. Therefore, they sometimes use the shortcut "We'll kick" instead of "We'll defer."

It's certainly not what they mean.