The Silver Fern

Just back from the match. Absolute bedlam, that was great fun. What an ending, haven't seen the replay yet so don't have an opinion.

I don't normally like that stadium for rugby because it's the wrong shape, but it was rocking tonight. Looked like it was about 50:50 in terms of support, but sounded more like 70:30 - the Kiwis were rowdy as

@nta said in Aussie Rugby:

https://7news.com.au/sport/rugby-union/concussion-ends-haylett-petty-rugby-career-c-4465680

Ah, that makes me sad. Real shame, but have to look after the noggin first. Hope he's OK longer term

@Kiwiwomble said in The Current State of Rugby:

@Rapido im on another forum that is predominantly NH people and they were all calling for blood for deliberate KNOCK ONS (you know who you are)...there is a growing divide between between north and south on what the game should look like

This is everything.

There are a bunch of different problems plaguing rugby under the general banner of refereeing.

1 - The law book is a mess, poorly written - ambiguous, contradictory, vague - and should be re-written from the ground up even if they don't change any laws (and we all agree they need to change some of them).

2 - Referees make too many blatantly incorrect decisions (AWJ's absurd yellow for example) that could be forgiven in real time before we had TMO, but there's no excuse for now. And there's way too much inconsistency in how the laws are applied - between countries, individual refs, from one game to the next, and worst of all between two teams in the same game (how many times do we see breakdown and scrum pens given to the team that "should" be stronger regardless of what's actually going on?).

3 - But those are relatively easy problems to fix. The toughest one is the perception that referring is appalling and is ruining the game. This is one of the rare things that NH and SH fans can agree on. But to fix it we need to deal with not just the previous two things, but also the gulf in about what rugby should look like.

Lots of people here were unhappy about the cards for the intentional knock-ons, and Ta'avao's red for the accidental tête-à-tête with Ringrose, while the people up north thought Fainga’anuku was damn lucky not to see red, and similarly Genge for pinning a guy down and smacking him about the head.

SH fans think that Northerners want to turn the game into tiddlywinks, with cards every 5 minutes and no tackling above the waist. NH fans think Southerners are in total denial about the seriousness of CTE and they want to dumb the rules down until it's just league XVs.

Who's right? It doesn't matter. At all. Not one chuffing iota. What matters is that we're poles apart, and you can't fix the law book or the refereeing if nobody can agree what 'fixed' means. And as far as I can see there's no plan for that at all.

Before the game:

Don’t worry Wales, this is no Springbok B-team

After the game:

Wales beat Springboks ‘B’ team to secure first ever win on South African soil

I still can't believe that Spurs fired Pochetino, to replace him with Mourinho of all people. Dumbest managerial sacking since Newcastle got rid of Bobby Robson for only finishing 5th in the league.

@crucial said in Wales v Australia:

@booboo said in Wales v Australia:

@tordah said in Wales v Australia:

@gibbon-rib I don't think the argument should be about whether it went backwards by an inch or not.
In basically EVERY instance this happens, the referee penalises the intent, which here quite clearly was to disrupt the pass through a negative play, that is not in the spirit of the game.
The ball was not clearly knocked back (it was knocked back by an inch or two), but the intent of the player was to disrupt and he took the chance of an extremely negative play which he might have been carded for. Seeing as assumed intent is already a part that is refereed, 99 out of a 100 refs would penalise the Welsh player here.

Basically, nobody wants to see a try like this, nobody wants to see plays decided by measuring whether a ball fell downwards at an angle or not. The intent was bad and he got lucky. Yes, play to the whistle and all (fucking idiot Kurtley), but the Welsh player knew himself he fucked up. If that try was chalked off, there would be almost no complaints, as it wouldn't feel wrong. We all know that is not how we play this game.

You would hope 100 out 100 would not penalise.

There is no "negative intent". Stopping a pass legally is a very positive result for Wales.

I think their is a bit of confusion here. IMO it was a negative action but tat was solely because he didn't look to be trying to knock it back,it was just fortuitous that he did. He was just sticking out a hand to stop the pass and it worked out.

Having watched the replays far too many times, I've actually come to the conclusion that Tomkins deserves a bit more credit than just being the beneficiary of pure luck. His motion is more than just sticking his arm out, he actually moves his hand and fingers back as the ball arrives in an attempt to knock it backwards towards himself. And I think he knew it went backwards - he does slow down, but you can clearly see him saying "back" to the ref. (It's reasonable to ask why he slowed down at all, my guess is that he thought it had been called back because of of reactions of all the other players / 75k fans around him).

So I think he was just very lucky, rather than incredibly lucky.

Having said that, it's all irrelevant to the outcome, all that matters is whether the ball went forwards.

@antipodean said in The Current State of Rugby:

Good points @junior and @gibbon-rib - it's only recently home nations rugby could be considered entertaining. They're not used to it.

If God had wanted us to throw it around he wouldn't have made it rain 350 days a year. Just give it to the fat lad to stick up his jumper like nature intended.

@nostrildamus said in Wales v Australia:

@mikethesnow said in Wales v Australia:

@billy-webb said in Wales v Australia:

@nta said in Wales v Australia:

@gibbon-rib said in Wales v Australia:

That surprises me a bit. I know the Wallabies are being held together by sticky tape at the moment, but Wales are much the same. And that shambolic display against Fiji has to count for something? Fiji destroyed Wales at the breakdown. We're not ranked 9th in the world for nothing.

Agreed - Wales aren't red hot, but they still won and were pretty close against the Boks.

The Wallabies aren't that far away of course, but fuck we've shit the bed on this tour.

Wales play a game pretty similar to the Boks. Given that the Wallabies found a game plan to beat the Boks twice in a row, I would tip them for the win today.

Agreed

And our nemesis, Kurtley, is playing

I'm not sure he is the same as Kurtley of yore.

I'm sure we can adjust our level accordingly

@MN5 said in RWC - if the ABs lose, which champs wouldn’t be too bad?:

Why all this love for Wales. Fuck Wales.

Scotland all the way

I don't know about anyone else, but for me it's probably because I'm Welsh

@barbarian said in Wales v Australia:

@voodoo said in Wales v Australia:

So in summary, yes, your rage was entitled!

After 15 years on this site, finally I get the reinforcement I needed. Thank you. I can now die happy righteously angry.

FIFY

@nevorian said in Wales v South Africa:

Are we likely to see AWJ playing again then, may make it back for another crack at the Six Nations?

Having an operation, expected to be ruled out for the Six Nations too.

Shame he's stuck one short of 150 caps for Wales*. But you can't rule him out of a return until the ink's dry on his death certificate.

*He's already on 162 including the Lions (I know the official records say 161, but nobody's given me a good reason why the Lions - Japan match shouldn't be a capped test, so I'm including it)

@nta said in Wales v Australia:

Watching back now.

Beale's yellow card is due to the actions of the home broadcaster and nobody else.

Ref called a scrum.

Broadcaster puts up a replay for the crowd to blow up at. Ref changes his decision on review.

Was it the right decision? Maybe. Beale is just close enough to be a tackler, but also looking at the ball.

Is it foul play? Not according to the officials in real time. So four match officials haven't seen it.

That's another thing that needs to be fixed - it's crazy that the broadcaster can influence the outcome of the game

@tordah this is one of the more bizarre claims I've ever seen on a rugby site. That the ref should overrule the laws of the game and treat a legal knock-back as an illegal knock-on because if infringes some unwritten ethereal "spirit of the game".

As a neutral, the Blues line out is killing me

https://www.bbc.com/sport/rugby-union/62024871

This is a shame, Francis is probably our best scrummaging tight head. He was played off the bench last week to try to counter the bomb squad, but clonked his noggin pretty much straight away.

Also a worry for him personally, as he's had a few concussions in the past, including that disgraceful one in the 6N when he was so woozy he had to hold on to the post to stay upright but they let him play on - and then when they eventually took him off for an HIA he somehow passed it and was allowed back

@MiketheSnow said in Springboks v Wales - the decider:

@Smuts said in Springboks v Wales - the decider:

@MiketheSnow seems a good time to say how impressive your starting locks, both hookers and all your loosies have been. Played out of their skin.

Agreed, except throwing the fucking ball in

They've both been shit

Beard owes us a big match. Rowlands has been very good.

Lydiate is reborn
Faletau is just warming up. He's a 3rd Test player who loves the deep water.
Reffell has been the revelation

Really good balance in the backrow

All of this.

I'm biased, but I think Faletau has been absolutely world class for most of his career. I reckon he's very underrated, even though a lot of people do rate him pretty highly. If he hadn't been hindered by some major injuries (and sometimes his teammates) then he would be considered an all time great. There is nobody better at controlling and rescuing a ball from the back of a scrum that is being completely vaporised, which is a priceless skill for a Welsh number 8.

He's going to have a shocker now, isn't he?

Well that leaves a very sour taste after what could have been a great contest. 4 yellows FFS, ridiculous

@ACT-Crusader said in Australia v England - the decider:

@Derpus said in Australia v England - the decider:

@ACT-Crusader Something seriously wrong with you if you'd rather England win.

Nah, I know I’m in the minority here but I’m an England fan. They’ve been my second team to support since the late 80s.

Not just here, you're in a minority of one globally.

I know lots of people support England, but I assumed that they were literally nobody's second team

@nta Nice, great work mate

@barbarian said in Wales v Australia:

@gibbon-rib said in Wales v Australia:

@barbarian said in Wales v Australia:

There's no doubt Wales got just about every 50/50 call, the Tomkins try included.

The worst call, though, was the collapsed maul turnover in about the 55th minute. A clear Wallaby penalty, with a case for a YC and maybe even a PT. And yet he somehow missed our ball carrier being dragged down from behind by a player not bound to the maul. Aggregious.

I was impressed with our heart, and ability to score tries with 14 men. It was a loss on the scoreboard but nowhere else.

Well neither the red card nor the Tompkins try were anything like a 50/50. It went back, and you can't give a knock on for a ball that goes back.

Was the maul the one in the corner near the Welsh try line? Agree that should have been a Wallabies pen

The red card was fine, no issues with that from me.

I think the Tomkins try was a 50/50, in the sense that if that happened in any other game I think it gets blown as a knock on or deliberate knock on and nobody really complains about it.

I liken it to the ball being passed to a player and it cannoning off their chest without touching their arms or hands. In a strict sense it's not a knock on, is it? But you very rarely see a referee play that interpretation.

So while you could say the Tomkins try is clear, I'd argue in reality it's a 50/50 call that fell to Wales.

Yeah, I know what you mean. If he'd given a knock on everyone would have accepted it no issues because it just looked like one. If I later saw a replay that showed it went back I'd be mildly annoyed - a "what could have been" kind of annoyed though, not mad at the ref.

But yeah given that we have the replay we can see it was the right call. The ref deserves credit for this one for being just about the only person in the stadium who saw it correctly in real time.

Rennie's not doing himself any favours picking on this decision to whinge about. Pick one of the ones the ref got wrong instead.