I hate lineout mauls (even though my team the Magpies perfected it a few years ago with Ash Dixon being one of our top try scorers). The way they are refereed allows the attacking team to do almost limitless cheating while putting the entire responsibility for keeping a maul up on the defending team.
I caught this while watching highlights of a glorious game of NPC from last night. This is refereed as, and would be a perfect attacking lineout at the moment, at all levels - all the way up to international rugby.
But these angles show just how stupid interpretations from lineouts have become, and why almost everyone kicks for a 5-10m lineout from penalties. If you can get this even half right you'll probably score a try, or even better a penalty try and an over reaction yellow card - similar to how Fiji suffered against Wales.
The defending team has no chance here. They must let the player down before tackling, but he is already passing it to someone that the two lifters, and guards are blocking them from tackling while still a meter up in the air.
Then by the time he has landed his two lifters are completely blocking any possible tackle by landing in front of him, with their shoulders pointing longitudinally down the field - perfectly shielding the ball.
By all rights this should be penalty against Canterbury here for obstruction, forming a maul in front of the ball carrier.
in super rugby at least, they are calling this as obstruction, as the lifters are in front of the ball carrier.
Its called very inconsistently. In the NZ vs Namibia game one got called, but only because it resulted in a try. From the penalty Namibia were given afterwards they kicked to a lineout and did the exact same thing - and the TMO didn't intervene so no penalty.