[Closed] 6 Nations

**** this for a game of soldiers. Might go for a ride instead.

Joubert's a prize bellend, though! That was never a yellow for Byrne, and then he casually ignores the same offence by Ireland to award them a penalty instead.

Seemed fair enough to me - he clearly has been strict and fair at the ruck making teams release the ball. Ref had clearly laid out his stall. Charvis agrees with teh ref at a half time interview

Ref really sharp on the breakdown, not releasing the player and the ball too. Think Byrne was sent off for holding on then knocking the ball out of Irish hands after. Was lucky to stay on for his 2nd cynical stupid penalty. Professional foul if ever there was 1

Score would be better if Sexton could find his kicking boots.

Now praying for a good 80 mins plus from Scotland.

Agreed, that second one really WAS a yellow! Stupid.

Ireland v lucky not to have a man off as well ,with the continual penalty count against them.

Rubbish performance by Wales. Rubbish. Not happy.

molgrips - Member

Gatland is a top bloke, he actually says stuff rather than emitting standard coach-talk.

I think Wales really are the superior side but they're definitely just not clicking.. [b]I am becoming more and more convinced that my theory is correct; that Gatland is just using this tournament as experimentation[/b]

That's pretty hard to imagine, in sport winning and losing are habits. Playing badly and losing for the sake of experimentation does not sound like the plan of a sane man!

They just showed Byrne knocking the ball out of the Irish scrumhalf's hands for his yellow.

Agree Ireland could easily have lost a player to the bin. Think the newness of this interpretation of releasing the player before going for the ball saved them. 1st game of the series I have seen it been so rigidly enforced.

Ireland lucky to keep 15 men for persistent infringing. However I thought the ref was fine - strict but consistent. No lying all over the ball or handling on the ground meant for a lot of quick ball.

Irelands wall of green never seemed to have a gap in it. Nice to see the loop / runaround move making a reappearance in this 6N.

Hmmm...seem to remember saying 15-20 points. Wasn't far off was I, eh, eh?

S****, s****

Dylan Hartley.

Liability. A truly pisspoor player.

Well I have seen better rugby. How long before an England forward is in the bin? And can we please do something about the scrums!

Scotland seem to had problems with the scrum all series. Hope we can free Evans a bit more.

Pathetic Scottish fans cheering when Wilkinson is taken off injured. ****ing disgraceful. Vile. At least it was only a minority, but still not what we do in this game.

been out all day just watched the ireland wales game. Ireland do have some fantastic players but the ref ****ed that game. Wales were poor in general. The Byrne yellow was very harsh and how ireland kept all their players on the park in the second half was utterly mistifying. The ref did well in general but lacked the balls to send an ireland player to the bin. It wasnt until the final ten that the ref even warned ireland. Typifies all that is wrong in rugby at the moment, ref said Byrnes foul was cycnical but fails to see the cynicism in 3 pens in sucession 5m from the ireland line.

Agreed CFH! Hope Monye is ok but i did laugh when the cart had to be pushed off.

Oh and is Scotland that bad that they have to advertise "Come to Yorkshire" on the advertising boards 😉

Stodge. Plum duff and cloutie dumpling.

Scots looked more likely to score the try but it wasn't very likely.

Beattie the best player on the park by a fair way. Time for Johno to make some changes surely?

England warned 3 times about persistent offences - very lucky to have 15 on the park - and a few punches as well - bit handbaggy / powder puff tho - neither side can even have a real punch up.

Can we have the Wales / Ireland game again please?

ref said Byrnes foul was cycnical but fails to see the cynicism in 3 pens in sucession 5m from the ireland line.

Amen.

Wales well beaten 😥

I am mystified by England, heard Haskells name mentioned once, Armitage is just crap. Looked better after Wilkinson went off but what did Flutey do?

Foden looked good, laughed when he smashed the lock and gumshield flying!
Textbook body position, accelerated into contact. I've never seen armitage do that, the opposite in fact.
Otherwise, pretty shit.

The most entertaining thing about the Scotland-England game was Brian Moore's commentary and the pictures of Andy Robinson throwing his toys out of the cot. The scummaging was appalling, the England back line anonymous, and there was as much chance of a try as me sh*gging Kylie tonight.

scotland england was like watching 2 one legged men in an arse kicking contest

England retained the Calcutta Cup as they fought out a nerve-shredding draw with Scotland, who now look certain to end with the Six Nations wooden spoon.

england loked a lot better when foden and flood came on!! seemed to up the tempo a bit.

quality bit of smashing by foden on the scottish bloke though!!

Pathetic Scottish fans cheering when Wilkinson is taken off injured. ****ing disgraceful. Vile. At least it was only a minority, but still not what we do in this game.

That was English fans cheering!

I'm Welsh and Wales were shocking, with Ireland not much better. Overall the standard of this whole 6 Nations has been exceptionally poor, with skill levels dropping year on year

Thought the ref had an ok game myself...tried his best to keep men on the field. But what can you do when Byrne puts his hand up and asks to be sent off? There's a lot of not-taking-one's-beating going on in this thread. Then again, it's dominated by a certain set of supporters. Grace and magnanimity...come on folks.

Thought the ref had an ok game myself...tried his best to keep men on the field.

But why try to keep men on the field? I thought the ref was excellent apart from his lack of balls to bin an irish man. Its frustrating and the game is being ruined I am really going off watching rugby as it has become so cycnical and negative. Ireland are a good team with an excellent back line, and good forwards yet they choose to play a cycnical, mostly negative game and only really play positive rugby when handed chances on a plate by the other teams **** ups or when someone has been binned. Now I dont blame them, its effective but it isnt great to watch, its not even forward grinding out stuff like england used to be good at which was not pretty but actually great to watch (dont tell them though) its negative kick the ball away and wait for the oppsoition to **** up.

The real frustration for me is that we dont see teams like ireland really go for it for 80mins as the referring doesnt encourage it. And before you moan yes I realise Wales would have been beaten by far more than they were had Ireland tried to play in more than flashes.

On the way they played yesterday,England are a long way from even winning the 6n,let alone winning WC.Scotland have been dire this year,but England looked just as bad yesterday.Sorry about the booing of JW,BTW.

[url= http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/rugbyunion/international/england/7440090/Six-Nations-2010-England-back-row-to-blame-for-laboured-mess-against-Scotland.html ]Telegraph analysis of England's consistent underperformance.[/url]

Makes a lot of sense to me.

And something must be done about the scrums. I played in the front row for 20 years, and I'm the last person who would want to see them go, but the way they are just now they're hard to justify.

deadlydarcy - Member
Thought the ref had an ok game myself...tried his best to keep men on the field. But what can you do when Byrne puts his hand up and asks to be sent off? There's a lot of not-taking-one's-beating going on in this thread. Then again, it's dominated by a certain set of supporters. Grace and magnanimity...come on folks.

Well, you would say that as you are supporting the team that benefited from the ref's interpretation!

Byrne was carded for knocking the ball away in the Irish 22 - a cynical move, but Ireland were never going to score from that move. NOT a yellow.

The ref then DIDN'T card an Irish player while Wales were putting huge pressure on them on the Irish 22m. The only way the Irish team could alleviate the pressure was to kill the ball in the knowledge that the ref WASN'T going to send any of them off.

Why not? That's exactly what the yellow card is for.

Similarly in the other game, England were warned within the first 20 minutes, but continued to commit the same offences and finished the game intact.

As Anargallis said, mystifying.

Wales (or Scotland OR England) didn't deserve to win the game yesterday, but it may have been a different game if the ref had used the yellow card as they are supposed to be used. Don't forget that without the points scored during the sending off, the end result is very different.

I dunno...more excuses and yet more excuses. It was the ref, it was the points scored while he was off the pitch, it was this, it was that.

Put simply, Ireland were 15 points better on the day - they moved the ball faster, passed better, put better platforms in than Wales did, obviously, easier to do when you've got a head of steam and the opposition loses a man for ten minutes. if you're going to keep blaming others around your team for constant underperformance, then you'll be at the back end of the table by the end of next year's 6N too.

It's wearing a bit...

****, at least the England fans have accepted that it isn't everybody else's fault.

I think darcy has hit the nail on the head.

Darcy if you want to go down that road then how is it that your golden generation has only won one grand slam and how many have you won all together? 😉 you are sounding liking the English with we won the World Cup once.

I got no problem with yesterday we got turned over.

Now one of the French wingers is 5'5" 😯 allez le petite homme 😀

Umm, we've won the world cup only once but there's only been 6 tournaments and we reached the final of another! You've only had 2 grand slams in the last 30 years!
We've won more grand slams, triple crowns and 6N tournaments.

deadlydarcy - Member

Put simply, Ireland were 15 points better on the day

Which equates to a man better on the day. Which man, I'll leave you to decide... 😉

BTW, I can't see anybody, myself included, blaming the ref for the loss, just discussing a major talking point in the match - to spell it out to you - [b]how do Ireland manage to get away with continually killing the ball[/b], when everyone else is penalised for it?

Should we just applaud and cheer that Ireland win another game without discussing why? Well done chaps, you're all great.

Pigface - Member

I am mystified by England, heard Haskells name mentioned once,

The first time I saw Easter was in the second half - I genuinely thought he'd been on the bench.

backhander - Member
Umm, we've won the world cup only once but there's only been 6 tournaments and we reached the final of another! You've only had 2 grand slams in the last 30 years!
We've won more grand slams, triple crowns and 6N tournaments.

Which is what you'd expect of a country of your size - in fact you are still rather underperforming when you take player numbers into account.

Thanks Backhander true to form as ever. 😉

Well considering its the 3rd favorite sport in england, I think we do alright.
You could say we're better because of our larger population, I prefer to say we're just better. 😛

Evidence from Scotland would contradict your claim 😀

lol at Pigface.

backhander, seriously, what are your team doing? Johnson obviously doesn't know:

Martin Johnson insists England are improving under his leadership amid continuing criticism of his team's performances in the Six Nations.

The great thing for you is that there is still a chance of winning the championship outright! They are taking the 'win ugly' mantra to an extreme though.

The great thing for you is that there is still a chance of winning the championship outright!

Not anymore!

Think They have secured 3rd place though!

The frustrating thing is though Darcy that Ireland were the better side but played a very cycnical game in the second half as do all the succesful teams. Wales would too if they didnt always manage to get 15 points behind early on. But NZ against France in the autumn apart I cannot remeber seeing a game when a team went for it from the off. Dont get me wrong Wales are loosing because they are shit (due to key players being injured and others off form/carrying injuries and a cronic lack of strength in depth) However the game is being destroed by refs not making players ruck and not use hands in the ruck and not carding teams who are being cynical in defence. As I said earlier Joubert was pretty good in all aspects but I think an Ireland player should have been binned about 15 mins from the end after a string of defence pens. I also dont think the Byrne yellow was a great call either but then I wouldnt, but if cycnical pens are a yellow thats great just be consistent if he had have been Ireland should have lost about 3 players to the bin.

Evidence from Scotland would contradict your claim

You had better hopr France only bother playing for 20 mins 😉

You better hope that scotland don't upset the irish (unlikely mind you) or you could finish last.

If Scotland had a backline worthy of the name they'd have murdered England, however they have Dan parkes and Hugo Southwell instead. Dan Parks is shit and for some reason I find him quite unlikeable. Its all very well being a cocky ten, but not if your crap. I of course reserve the right to change my mind once he starts playing for Cardiff. As an aside what the **** have they been putting in Dwayne Peels tea since he went to Sale? He's crap.

I enjoyed Roberts v O'Driscol yesterday, thought Roberts did well as they both knocked lumps out of each other. Keet Earls made me eat my words too. Always thought he was shit, maybe I should just remember he was only playing agaisnt a shit Wales team. Looking forward to seeing Bradley Davies and AWJ playing together two ball carrying ruck hitting second rows. Charteris can piss off. Martyn Williams seems well past his best this season shame.

and finally, who the **** is Rhys Gill?

Pigface I expect nothing less than a thrashing from france.
I also think the Italians will turn wales over.

I can see that happening as well 🙁