West Australian Football

The following clip provides an example of a player incorrectly bringing the ball back into play from a position over the boundary line.

Jimmy Bartel is standing outside the boundary line and handballs to his teammate Tom Hawkins who is also outside the boundary line. As a result, Jimmy Bartel has played on whilst out of bounds so the field umpire correctly calls ‘play on’ enabling the boundary umpire to signal that the ball is out of bounds.

It is important in this situation that the field umpire immediately calls ‘play on’ when the player does so. By doing this, the boundary umpire is able to quickly react and signal that the ball is out of bounds. However, it is important to note that if the player had of handballed to a teammate who was standing inside the field of play, the ball would not have been called out of bounds as he would have brought the ball back into play correctly.