Try, or no try? Would you have given this try? Was Ryan Kankowski a "mile offside"?

Ruan Pienaar of the Sharks kicks a free kick into touch. Tatafu Polota-Nau, the Waratahs' hooker, gets a ball from the ballboy to throw it in.  Kane Douglas of the Waratahs goes up high with two support players and passes it back to Luke Burgess, his scrumhalf. Burgess passes to his right. Kankowski intercepts the pass, races downfield, beats Drew Mitchell and scores. The referee awards the try.

There are some points to be made.

If we regard this as a line-out, was Kankowski offside - even a metre, let alone a mile?

He was inside the 15-metre line; so he was not offside there.
He was on his side of the line-out when Douglas passed to Burgess; so he was not offside there.
When Douglas passed to Burgess the line-out, if it was one, was over.

What ever else happened, Kankowski was not offside.

But was it a line-out?

Law 19.8 deals with the forming of a line-out.

Law 19.8 (n) Metre gap. Each line of players must be half a metre on their side of the line of touch.
Sanction: Free Kick on the 15-metre line.

Look at the Sharks. Not one of them was just the half metre from the line of touch. They were much further away.

It was not a formed line-out.

Because it was not the ball that was kicked out handled only by the player throwing in, a quick throw-in, which is what this is, was not allowed. A line-out had to be formed. The line-out was not formed.

So you would have stopped things at the throw-in. You could have freekicked the Sharks for taking too long to form the line-out but in all probability you would have held play up till the line-out was formed with the correct gap between the two lines of players in the line-out.