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Some good tweets in response to Francis stating Gatland had the intelligence of a tub of Flora
Flora 23 Clover 16
And Tony Copsey suggested he needed another slap!!
I cannot believe that this is an international game and that neither of these are the worst team in the 6N!!!
There are 30 something blokes in Rome that have forgotten what game they're playing. It's worse than watching schoolboys 3rds.
England were a shower of shit yesterday. Terrible. The backs were both greedy and lazy; none of them seemed to look for support or offer it. Nowell was garbage. He tries hard but he's just not an international wingers - he's too slow and as for his handling. How many knock ons? Thought Ben Youngs was awful too. How he got man of the match is beyond me. It should gave gone to Lawes.
I enjoyed the Wales Ireland game though. Wales certainly put their bodies on the line and I was impressed with Irekanf getting through about 900 phases in one go with no knock ons, penalties etc. Their accuracy in those situations is impressive. Sexton had a mare. Warburton had a big game.
Today's game is er, awful. Next weeks game between England and France looks like it's going to be awful!
Everyone in ireland knows Neil Francis is a troll, no one takes his rubbish very seriously
mindmap3 - Member
England were a shower of shit yesterday. Terrible. The backs were both greedy and lazy; none of them seemed to look for support or offer it. Nowell was garbage.
You can only play what's in front of you 😉
I was impressed with Ireland getting through about 900 phases in one go with no knock ons, penalties etc
No points, either.
More poor trolling from THM,points lost for not having a ref to sweatys or jocks in it.Can you explain how Scotland being garbage stops England being able to pass or catch?
Find any reference to "jocks" and I might indulge you ref, otherwise, take it as read. Odd that a ref has to keep making things up to make a point?
Have you never played against a weaker side? How often have sides played poorly against Italy for example. No "points" for realising why......anyway, I share your pain ducks. Losing to a team that is apparently "shit", cannot pass or catch and squanders multiple chances to score, must be hard to stomach.
Anyway SOH required BTW.
F
Find any reference to "jocks" and I might indulge you ref, otherwise, take it as read. Odd that a ref has to keep making things up to make a point find any reference to "jocks" and I might indulge you ref, otherwise, take it as read. Odd that a ref has to keep making things up to make a point?
Why do you have to always bring in personnal digs all the time?
AA, look where it started mate, look where it started (clue the post above the one you reference).
Unnecessary really, but I don't believe in uncontested [s]slurs[/s] line outs. And it's not a dig, it's an invitation to show where I used the word Jock.
SOH required, it's only a game!
are you 5 years old thm?look where it started mate
All the pundits I heard on the radio yesterday were assuming that england would win in Paris with out question. Not sure about that.
I am nervous about playing in Italy if anyone can cock it up history has shown is us 😆
I haven't seen the bookies odds, but I still have Ireland as favourites.
Wales too many points behind, and loss of props a big issue. They will win easily, but not by 30.
England - France MUST turn up at some point. However - it is at Twickenham.
Ireland - only 2 points behind England on PD, with an easier game.
AA, look where it started mate, look where it started (clue the post above the one you reference).
with you talking about "sweaties" didn't it?
Well there has to be one shock/twist next weekend.
So Murrayfield, Twickers or Rome?
Home advantage hasn't worked out quite as expected this time.
{x-post, still no J? And no, they do that themselves. anyway sympathies still with you, must have been gut wrenching to watch and old Gav was saying how well you were playing on the radio. Good luck against Ireland - THEY are a good team, unlike us)
teamhurtmore - MemberThat audio is the most depressing thing about being an England supporter. SLSC is even worse that the [b]sweaty[/b] flower song.
There you are,a not made up quote from you. Call your workmates Paddy or Sweaty do you?
Rugby;
How good was Cowan on Sat? Played like the love child of John Jeffreys and Finlay Calder.However in a typically Scottish Dad's army scenario;this mornings update seem to suggest he is broken and a doubt for next week. Anybody on here got a Scottish Granny and a high pain threshold/fluid interpretation of the exact meaning of the word "offside"?
Whilst there is a break in play a trivial question that you may be able to help with 🙂
Surfer junior plays junior colts and its typical for a coach etc to run touch from each team. Are these touch judges "allowed" to "call" fouls, offsides etc when on occasion they are clearly best placed to see them? Or does the referee ignore them as bias! (which they often are!)
What is the rule?
Well there has to be one shock/twist next weekend.
England to score as many tries as there are chances? A shocking display - I watched the U20's on Friday and they put the seniors to shame.
If England win on points difference that'd be a shock to me. FWIW, the SH teams must be laughing their socks off.
Not laughing but smiling perhaps. But no shocks - NZ and SA are the two best teams on the world. No shocks there. Then Ireland, England, Aus and Wales - who can all beat/lose to each other, then the mercurial French (who knows) and Argentina.
Pretty much on form/rankings at the moment.....
Pigface,the rule is that they are just touch judges. In Lower adult leagues it is traditional for a tj from each team to do a side. They call when the ball is in or out and in theory nothing else. Youth rugby is a rite of passage,it is no surprise to anybody who watches it that u18 games get the same grade ref as national league games up here. My record for cards was 7 yellows and 4 reds in a U18 Fife derby...oh; and witness to an assault case...And my car vandalised. TBH I am surprised the coaches were running touch,it might make them too short of breath to scream at the ref at full volume.
Cheers Duckman
Yesterdays game was abandoned and it looks like the team coach has stood down after he allegedly incited retaliation after what appeared to be a nasty stamping incident. Fortunately Surfer junior wasnt involved.
Far from unusual,the game I am alluding to above,a boy had to have his spleen removed,people like that are ruining rugby. When you have teams that play like that it just takes a look at the coach to see where it comes from.
In our old adult 'grass-roots' league, Gloucester 2, a local team called Tredworth had a fearsome (and deserved) reputation for bringing violence to the pitch. They also had a violent set of travelling fans that would get involved if anyone stood up to their abuse. Most normally bouyant clubs would struggle to raise a 1st XV on the league weekends when it was a Tredworth game.
In fact my last ever game was against Tredworth I came off after 60 minutes exhausted and smashed up. Crap way to end playing a game I absolutely love.
They folded last year thankfully, and the local leagues collectively breathed a sigh of relief, even though it was actually a shame as the club was 110 years old and wasn't always that way
EDIT: You didn't wanna run the touch-line at a Tredworth home game I can tell you.
Flip! I'm just getting into reffing, it all seems so pleasant at mini & junior level! You guys are putting me off 🙁
Its a cliche but it is very much a minority. Almost every game I watch it is easy to identify 1 or 2 players in the first couple of minutes who are up for a fight. The vast majority are great lads.
Surfer junior is loving it and the camaraderie is great. He beat me for the first time ever on last nights press up challenge but I did maintain my arm wrestle title. I think I will lose that any week 🙁
We would always expect incidents in any game, especially as raking out tacklers on the wrong side of the ball was allowed then. Grass-roots rugby at adult age is far-removed from the stereotypical public schoolboy image. However, almost all games were played with tremendous sportsmanship and team spirit, and you never make a friend quite like the ones you have played rugby with 😉
and you never make a friend quite like the ones you have played rugby with
Even the oppo! Used to play Wrekin College in the old days and the other hooker and I never got on from U13-1XV. Always included a good scrap at some stage. But they had a tradition in the 1XV that you had a pint of beer in some barn after the match. Even after a feisty set of exchanges during the match, we had a laugh about it over the beers and stayed friends for many years afterwards. One of the beauties of the game. 20 stone plus Fife farmers at Uni were a different matter altogether though 😉
Ah, so you were a hooker then thm?
That should be obvious! 😉 Only #9s are more annoying!
[Well at 6'2" more a third flanker with massive props]
A friend played for a school in Cardiff and got to an area final. The team they were playing in the final was their local rivals and there was no love lost between the schools. They played a week before the final in a game that was really nasty, a bunch of 30 boy scraps and about 5 sending offs.
The ref of the final got both teams and coaches together before the start and came out with this quote "Be under no illusion I will have no hesitation into turning this game into 5 a side if I have a repaet from last week" it worked and according to my mate it was a brilliant match.
That should be obvious!
Ah, it's just that you never mention it... 😛
Theres a team that sound like that Tredworth in our league. Really rough group of lads from Salford and also have a nasty group of fans as well. One of our wingers was running down the touchline once and just got clothes lined by a supporter! Horrible to play against, but the annoying thing was they were actually pretty decent at rugby when they weren't trying to gouge your eyes out. They regularly used to yo-yo between our league and the league above. Apparently they used to come a bit unstuck against the real hard nuts from Workington/Barrow/Whitehaven way.
I'm all for the what happens on the pitch stays on the pitch but when some Manc gobs**te spends 80 minutes stamping, biting and gouging his way through a game its hard to laugh about it over a pint! God I hate them!!
Apparently they used to come a bit unstuck against the real hard nuts from Workington/Barrow/Whitehaven way.
I (fondly?!) remember playing against Millom at under 15s, we were a gang of callow youths and our whole team (with the exception of our hooker, sumo) added together probably weighed less than their front row. They also only had one eyebrow to share between them. Anyhow, they kicked ten shades of shit out of us and made essentially no attempt to score points and I was quite glad when I broke a finger ten minutes from then end and got taken off. We whupped them by about 30 points but you'd never have believed it looking at the thousand yard stares at the whistle.
My England Player Ratings from Saturday:
MIKE BROWN: Gobby dhead and too slow to be a top fullback.
ANTHONY WATSON: Promising but should be at fullback. Appears to have learnt how not to look up and pass the ball whilst being with England.
JONATHAN JOSEPH: Great, or he would be if surrounded by some less maladroit players.
LUTHER BURRELL: Did a fine impersonation of Brad Barritt - FFS!
JACK NOWELL: Not international class, poor hands and a stupid haircut.
GEORGE FORD: Very Good.
BEN YOUNGS: Still can't box kick. MoM? For what?
JOE MARLER: Poorer at the scrum than I expected.
DYLAN HARTLEY: Still a dhead.
DAN COLE: Appears to have had a frontal lobotomy which has removed any knowledge of the laws of the game.
COURTNEY LAWES: Great.
DAVE ATTWOOD: OK
JAMES HASKELL: Back to being a total bellend. Who puts spin on a pop pass?
CHRIS ROBSHAW: Worthy as ever but maybe he should be at 6?
BILLY VUNIPOLA: Not quite the Hammer of the Scots but put in a good shift.
Brian Moore said the following on Twitter about MoM:
Just to point out I picked Lawes as MoM but Youngs came up and had to deal with it.
By came up, I think he meant on screen.
I thought that as he was announcing it. When Ben Youngs came up on the screen Brian Moore paused for ages and had to change his tack mid-sentence. To be fair that's not like him he would normally just say whatever he was thinking
There aren't many positive comments there (which is fair 😀 ) but can I add a little more negativity?
GEORGE FORD: Very Good.
George Ford: Improvement over Farrel in open play but place kicking sub par for an international and still liable to run backwards/ sideways from time to time
Wales now 5th in IRB standings, overtaking Australia.
[url= http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/rugby-union/31908966 ]BBC Rugby[/url]
How the f did that happen?
I would imagine beating SA and Ireland helps.
Just watched the game again. If Ireland hadnt wasted so much energy trying to hold welsh tacklers in the back of rucks they might have got faster ball and scored some tries.
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^^BRILLIANT^^
Now, is there also one of him looking the other way as the ball is passed to him?
I'm so glad someone posted up that hand-off, one of the best I've ever seen. Deserves a high placing on the 'gifs you could watch all day' thread
Sexton always tackles too high, IMO. Part of the drilling to try and always go for the [s]yawn[/s] choke tackle, perhaps? He was trying to tackle Bastareaud too high against France as well.
I think Jiffy Jnr's hand off would make it in to this top 5
Sit down Sexton!
Cumnock in Ayrshire,they played in the old National 6. My old school club played them and the guys were full of stories of random violence including a guy being punched unconscious on the touchline and a spectator coming on and booting him. At Dundee High we got them in the cup and went down there,5 divisions above them with two pro's and a couple of Scotland Internationals.Dundee has only 4ish rugby clubs and we all know each other,so we knew who the jokers were in their team.
We went down to a huge crowd screaming for blood,and it kicked off BEFORE kick off when one of the cyclops-eyed 11 fingered sister-lovers threw a beer can at one of our players as he collected a ball. That was a mistake as it was Stew Campbell, 6"6" and 250lbs. We ran about 50 points in during the first half by scoring from pretty much every restart,the game only stopping to allow for first aid.
Our half time talk consisted of "Right; lets sort them out,but don't get sent off." I have never played in a half of rugby like it before or since,it was honestly like a low rent version of the 99 test,and yes we did do that. The ball would be lying beside two players who were just knocking the tar out of each other. I still look for them from time to time and wish them nothing but ill.
I used to want to play rugby.. not sure I do any more...
Love these tales of crazy games, Newport High School Oldboys drew Caerleon in a East Wales cup comp 😆 hysteria ensued, they all knew each other very well, many were good mates and in two cases brothers were playing for either side.
3 players sent off for fighting before the game even started 😆 ref abandoned it after 15 minutes 😆 No real nastyness just sticking up for your team mates and not having the piss taken out of you.
About 9 players ended up infront of a local WRU panel for fines and bans. Best bit was the gorgeous Adam who had no part in the fisticuffs was king hit and ended up with a beauty of a shiner. No doubt retribution for having relations with somebodys girlfriend/wife 😆
Fair play he took it very well and was laughing his head off at the carnage.
A week later everyone back to being mates and the legend started to grow 😆
I watched some college kids attempting to play rugby at a US university. They couldn't handle the close contact apparently and took tackles as personal insults. At set pieces the back lines were ignoring the game and simply shouting abuse at each other. The ref abandoned the game after 60 mins or so, about half the players went in and the rest were still stood there shouting.
We had an American Football linebacker play a few games for us. He started in the 2nd row but was frustrated as he wasn't getting many tackles in. So we gave him a run-out at 8 in the seconds. Jesus christ that boy could tackle, he was huge and could move too, he was single-handedly mullering the entire opposition. For about 15 minutes. After that the constant getting back on your feet to make another tackle finished him off.
Tough guy though, he was on a firefighter exchange program with one of our guys. He might not have had the fitness but with a little work he would have been outstanding.
Backs....I played a wee bit of union at Georgia when I was doing my postgrad. They were these huge gym monkeys that had a)No concept of running at space. b) No idea how to deal with a dirty mid 30's Scotsman than knew every trick in the book. Seriously; I worked out that I could lie offside for 80 mins and nobody would stand on me,try THAT at home! I was once lying on the wrong side waving an arm and shouting at the clueless American kid to "let me up/out" all the while trapping the ball and the ref penalised [b]him[/b] for God knows what. Honestly, it would have been rude not to cheat.
This is where strength in depth is going to start to hurt...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/rugby-union/31923425
duckman a normal day at the office there for Richie McCaw
a normal day at the office there for Richie McCaw
😆 😆
Very good.
I've long been an advocate of the 4 points for a win plus bonus points system for the 6N.
However, going into the final round of matches Wales, Ireland and England would all have 13 points. (Wales and Ireland having gained losing bonus points and England getting a point for 4 tries against Italy).
You could argue that England might have sought a penalty at the end against Ireland to get a losing bonus pont but it wouldn't have made too much difference really - would it?
Still don't like the points difference thing though.
If its not a grand slam its just a consolation prize.
Meh. It's just a minor annual tournament anyway. Nice to win but ultimately a comp between the 3rd, 4th, 5th, 7th, 10th and 14th ranked sides (and that's when we're ranked well).
The important one only comes around every 4 years.
You keep telling yourself that wrecker, we might believe you one day!
You just cling to those old grand slams a_a! Glad they mean something to you still!
You cling to that World Cup Wrecker if it means that much to you 😆
You just cling to those old grand slams a_a! Glad they mean something to you still!
Piss taking aside, I do and they do mean a lot. I'd like to see Wales do better but winning those Grand Slams is great. I doubt I'd be "happier" if we won the world cup.
I'd sell my spleen ti beat the all blacks mind.
At least some of you can stick an 's' on to 'grand slam' (in your lifetimes). It was only a few years ago I could change 'victory' to 'victories' in 'away victories in Paris' in mine. 🙂 And piss-taking aside, the players from three teams will be going for a championship on Saturday. If it means something to them, then I'm sure I can find something in it for me.
Pity to hear Lee might miss the RWC though. 😐
England have quoted as "learned from their mistakes" and "taking it to the French" and "self belief" and Lancaster as "believing in team England and this current crop of world class players"
Thats good luck to Ireland/Wales/France as the potential 6N winners then.
And piss-taking aside, the players from three teams will be going for a championship on Saturday.
So are you excluding the English or the French there DD? 😉
Interesting to read about the thuggery of some sides in local club rugby; not the idyllic pastime that it's cracked up to be 😉
How are referees treated at club level? Is that still yes sir, no sir, three bags full sir?
I haven't played rugby for 30 years, since school. I was OK, but then at that age when everyone around me grew into man monsters, I stayed a schoolboy. By the time I got big enough again, I'd lost too much technique and nouse to get back into it. And football was my game anyway, so much so that I eventually after enforced retirement through injury reffed that for a time.
So the stories above reminded me of how a local league dealt with the issue of the local club with *that* reputation. They informed the committee of the club that they would not stand any longer for the constant niggle that refs got at their games and it was the responsibility of the club to sort it out, or they'd be barred from the league. The committee changed their club rules to include that if anyone got a yellow or red card for 'avoidable' indiscretions (dissent, kicking the ball away, fighting, etc.) then everyone in the team would then pay the same fine as the offender to the club.
Given that it wasn't uncommon for 4 or 5 bookings to be achieved per game for dissent, that could mean being fined 40 or 50 quid if the team didn't control itself. Pretty damn quickly as soon as someone opened their mouth to start arguing, 10 other blokes would be on him telling him to shut up and get on with it. Worked a dream. Worth proposing to some of your leagues / clubs, if you have the same problem?
namastebuzz - Member
I've long been an advocate of the 4 points for a win plus bonus points system for the 6N.However, going into the final round of matches Wales, Ireland and England would all have 13 points. (Wales and Ireland having gained losing bonus points and England getting a point for 4 tries against Italy).
You could argue that England might have sought a penalty at the end against Ireland to get a losing bonus pont but it wouldn't have made too much difference really - would it?
Still don't like the points difference thing though.
I don't like the idea of bonus points in the 6N at all, simply because of the excitement of the forthcoming Saturday. 4 sides going for the championship, all 3 games are vital and nobody can predict who will win until the last game is well underway. A bonus point system could have spoilt that completely in so many ways. (A team playing to manufacture a penalty simply to get a losing BP, or deny the other side a BP or whatever. And teams play slightly differently when BPs are at stake, whether for good or bad. Would the 6N be better if England (or whoever) were already winners based on denying other sides a losing BP?)
The good thing about points difference is that the team that scores most normally wins, although that's normally the case in BP competitions as well.
Anyway, I'm talking rubbish and probably not making sense! If it's not broken, don't fix it. The 6N is certainly not broken. As far as being a minor annual competition, well, I love watching the SH tournament but they'd give anything to have a competition as vital and as tense into the final week as the 6N.
And my suggestion to replace BPs... Back in the dawn of rugby the amount of minors (in the in-goal area) would be counted against a team in a draw. The same thinking could be applied today. 😆
The sanction at my lads club is to dock the first team points for any problems created by the lower teams.
Not sure this is effective as it led to the threat of a 10 point deduction recently for a broken ceiling tile as one of the team kicked a rugby ball in the changing room. The threat was enough for the club to disband their junior colts team.
His team joined another local club and on Saturday the game was abandoned due to an agressive team coach abusing the ref. Again a threat to dock points from the senior team!
The lads are incredibly well behaved and seldom get involved in any trouble but this sanction is constantly hanging over them. I dont this it is the same for other sides in their league who occasionally turn up with a couple of thugs in tow!
How are referees treated at club level? Is that still yes sir, no sir, three bags full sir?
Hell no, at lower level,few of them seem to have a clue about the actual rules of the game, yes further up.But the mind games come into it; Skippers of decent teams are very good at "helping" you in a we-will-all-have-a-better-game-if-you-do-this-way. It strangely is always the opo team stopping the game being a free flowing expression of champagne rugby as well 😛
Until last year the coach could attend the briefing in prem games up here,that never went well.
IdleJon said....... a bunch of stuff that mostly made sense
Yeah all valid points although, as I said, the three top teams would still have been level on points going into the final round even if the BP system was in place.
I still feel that you should get more for being edged out in a tight game (Scotland in 3 matches) than getting blown away and also think that being encouraged to score 4 tries is no bad thing. How many tries have Ireland mustered thus far?
I agree the 6N is still the best tournament but they used to share the title if teams had equal points rather than use the difference of points scored. Which I liked.
There should also be a 1/4 point for each time a team kicks to the corner when awarded a penalty in their own half. Penalty tries should only be 4.5 points as the conversion is always a given. An extra 3 points for "trying hard" to be awarded after Steve Walsh has watched the full game, in slow motion. 2 Points should be deducted at the end of the game from the side with the whiniest captain - to be decided by an online poll on STW. If a team has won a game by kicking penalties only, the other team should be immediately awarded a walkover. The team with the ****iest "away" strip (to be decided by thm) has -20 applied to their points scored total at the end of the competition.
Scottish turquoise and English purple condemn them to the wooden spoon for ever then. Navy and white, navy and white....repeat marketing muppets until you get it....navy and white
Oh for a return to classics with small (think Wimbledon) area for sponsorship on the arm.
The French need to get back to white shorts and red socks as well.
deadlydarcy - Member
There should also be a 1/4 point for each time a team kicks to the corner when awarded a penalty
I've wondered, for many years, why a team will kick to the corner after being awarded a penalty 5m from the opposition line, thereby taking their chances at the lineout instead of taking a tap penalty. Can anyone give me a sensible answer to this?
Lieout ties in more defenders and is easier to set up a maul from.
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hand off to beat Jiffy juniors one above.
I still feel that you should get more for being edged out in a tight game (Scotland in 3 matches) than getting blown away
Well you could run some alternative championships.
1) Total number of points scored in 5 games wins
2) For each game and each team calculate the ratio of that team's points to their opponent's, and add that to a running total. So in the case of Wales v Ireland, Wales would get 23/16 or 1.44, and Ireland 0.69
3) Highest points difference wins.
EDIT 2 and 3 are the same, aren't they? I had a good complicated one for 3 but I forgot it whilst working out the example for 2.
Lieout ties in more defenders and is easier to set up a maul from.
Speaking of which, 4.66 points only for a try scored from a rolling maul after a line-out. Reducing to 4.33 if the try is a penalty try.
thereby taking their chances at the lineout instead of taking a tap penalty
Fair point, if they take a tap penalty, score a try, which is not a penalty try, or scored from a rolling maul, then they should be awarded 5.25 points.
anagallis_arvensis - Member
Lieout ties in more defenders and is easier to set up a maul from.
That's the answer I was expecting, the conventional thinking, but it's not really true, is it?