What about Phillips’ hand-off to finish his dodgy try? It certainly was an excellent finish despite the illegality of the throw-in.

He led with the forearm and should be cited IMO, cowardly act

Blimey, have you watched any of the Super 15s?!?

Banahan is anything but a beast – sometimes looks as if he can’t be arsed, and close up is not as big as you’d think – although i’ve not told him that to his face. 😀

Poor Ireland were robbed by incorrect reff’ing….

In the Scots/Ireland game, a Scottish prop was sent off for collapsing the scrum, despite it being the fault of the Irish flanker who was boring in on the props at 90 degrees. While the prop was off Ireland scored 7 points and won the game by a smaller margin.

So the ref basically gave Ireland the game by not applying the law correctly.

What goes around…….

Add in the forward pass (I counted two) in the run up to England’s dodgy try v Scotland and you have three games in the last two weekends of rugby which were won because of poor refereeing, two of the results going against Scotland.

Strangely though Scotland aren’t complaining like that whinging idiot O’Driscoll!

I didn’t see the game, but every time I watch Cipriani I wait for some consistent genius. And I get disappointed every time. One of the most over-rated players I’ve ever seen.

Dunno about all the fuss over ref decisions. I thought one of the beauties of rugby was respect for the referee. They can’t get it right all the time

The problem is that in the NH the refs are getting it wrong so often, and the decisions are decisively affecting the results of the games.

Having watched rugby for several decades now, I can’t remember a period of time when so many games are won on poor reffing decisions. This 6N will be Englands because other teams are taken out of the running by the ref.

I’m quite happy to take a Welsh win, and even more amused when the constantly cheating Irish complain about other teams cheating.

BUT reffing decisions will consign Scotland to the bottom of the table, with the attendant loss of money and sponsorship that goes along with a wooden spoon. That in turn affects players and coaches and to a certain extent will turn spectators away from those games. A vicious circle.

Last weekend in the Super15, the refs had been told to penalise props who put their hand down in the scrum. WHY? Seriously, why? How badly does that affect the game when the three professional officials can’t spot blatant forward passes, knock-ons, high tackles, sealing off at breakdowns…..

Why don’t they stop fussing about things like ‘Crouch…..pause….touch..’ and start concentrating on the basics of the games instead.

Ref decisions will not consign Scotland to the bottom of the pile. If Scotland played against the other nations like they played against England then maybe they would have won some matches.

Some points:

1. Barclay got himself sent off for whining at the ref for the entire match and then committing a deliberate foul in the red zone. Ref got fed up with him, if anything his team mates should be pissed off with him.

2. Scotland came with a game plan of slowing down the ball at the breakdown. They did this very well. A Southern Hemisphere ref would have awarded many penalties against them for this, at Twickenham, they got away with out. (Robinson was a master at this). If there is any criticism of the ref is that he let them get away with it.

3. The Scots are blaming the ref for getting an injury during one of their attacks. I suspect the ref is none too happy about the injury, but having got the injury he had to blow the whistle

4. If the IRB are going to cite Banahan for the forearm then I suspect that we will end up with mass citings per match. Most NZ players do it, most SA do it and it is very common on the UK & I.

5. There are always passes that have gone forward – live with it. Matches have been won because of it. Refs do well to catch the majority of the offences. The mass TV audience have the advantage of multiple camera angles and slow mo.

England were rubbish yesterday, but at least came to attack. Scotland came with a game plan to defend, slow the ball down and see if they could steal the match. It almost worked.

Scotland now need to build on this performance and play better at home vs Italy. Take the foot off the pedal and France won’t be the only team to lose to Italy this year.

Oh holy Jeebus…let’s consider a scenario…England win a game at the millinimum by scoring a try similar to that scored by Wales on Saturday. I can tell you we’d be waiting till next year’s competition to hear the end of it.

Constantly cheating? You’re getting a bit carried away on the crest of a victory there aren’t you? I’m not complaining about the Welsh player actually trying the quick throw-in. It’s likely that in the heat of the moment, he didn’t realise he was committing an offence, but the ref and the touch judges between them should have known that it wasn’t a try. I can’t understand anyone gloating over a win where an illegal try is scored – the bigger guy takes the win quietly and is thankful for his luck.

Idiot? You’re losing the run of yourself now. He was asked for his comments and they were fairly measured given the nature of the silly error the ref had just made.

personally i think BoD was pretty restrained considering.
Mind you, given the years of whinging we’ve heard from certain Irish quarters about the ‘hand of Back’ i reckon we’ve at least a decade of grumpiness from the Irish over this one! 😛

First lesson in team games, play to the ref’s whistle. If the ref didn’t see it it didn’t happen.

Am off to Edinburgh for the weekend with friends to watch the Italy game. 8)

Any recommendations for somewhere in central Edinburgh to watch the 2 later games? Food & beer & view of telly required.

With regard to the 3 matches this past weekend, it was great to see Italy turn over France but I fear a wounded beast when the boys travel to Paris to face Les Bleus. The Wales-Ireland game could have gone either way, regardless of the controversial try. England-Scotland was low on quality but compelling viewing nonetheless. Has the error count across the tournament been high this year? Seems so.

I see Lievremont has dropped six players from the French squad, Chabal amongst them. Wonder if he’d call them cowards to their faces? 😯 😆

I can’t see how Lievremont can continue now, he’s not only lost the dressing room but he’s lost the plot too. Can anyone see the French squad wanting to perform for him now?
Only 4 months out from the WC too…

I expected the Scottish lineout to pose problems for England’s. As it transpired it was the opposite :-(. Ford had a mare and I think that was key. Interestingly I thought his game in the loose was his best in a long time

It was also interesting to see how much stronger the Scottish scrum was with Cross on. Better set piece possesion and Scotland may well have won.

In the end the better team won though world beaters they are not.

The Welsh try was embarassing for the officials and for Wales. They cheated and I don’t believe it was in the heat of the moment.

France / Italy. Well done Italy but France are simply perplexing!!!

Banahan is a thug. I tend to agree re the leading with the arm. Not nice.

Now then, about the Wales try. There is one fact which you cannot deny – It was a try. The referee said so. The scorecard said so. Move on.

Now, on to next week….! Marathon three in a row, followed by an early flight the next day! Great….

Italy v Scotland – I’d love to see Italy edge it!

Ireland v England – I’d love to see Ireland edge it. With a try scored after an obvious forward pass. Cue much munching on humble pie! 😉

France v Wales – France will stroll this one, sadly. Lievremont may be an idiot, but his players are superb. They really are too good to be that bad again. Aren’t they? ……

😆

Don’t think so. Can’t see the French team being up for it, myself.

2. Scotland came with a game plan of slowing down the ball at the breakdown. They did this very well. A Southern Hemisphere ref would have awarded many penalties against them for this, at Twickenham, they got away with out. (Robinson was a master at this). If there is any criticism of the ref is that he let them get away with it.

I just watched the game again.

Edit – those 4 – Gray , Vernon, Ford and Barclay. Any of the England forwards as quick?

Scotland did not go to slow england ball down – they went to compete at the breakdown – a subtle and important difference

So many of the breakdowns you say 2 or 3 Scotland players in there legally rucking for the ball. They were not diving in off their feet all the time or handling in rucks – but they were there to legally compete for the ball because of the game plan and most importantly the speed of the forwards. As well as Barclay and Brown (Vernon) Scotland had Ross Ford and most importantly Ritchie Gray getting stuck in and taking the ball off them.

Huge numbers of turnovers to scotland and not all from England errors is the only thing that kept Scotland in the game

Its a lesson teams keep giving England and will continue to do so – you must be quick to the breakdown and secure your ball. You cannot get away with a load of immobile forwards.

And Banahan – he’d have walked if I’d been refereeing – he knew exactly what he was doing raising his arm like that.

I don’t get that – you’d have sent him off for using his power and weight for running over another bloke of similar size? 😕

Suppose you’d have sent off Jonah Lomu too? (mind you, would’ve been handy in the 1995 RWC semi-final 🙂 )

Gray , Vernon, Ford and Barclay. Any of the England forwards as quick?

Tom Croft is quicker than all the Scottish forwards and probably most of the backs. At Leicester he was the second fastest player in the squad behind only Tom Varndell, who’s now at Wasps and is probably the fastest player in the Premiership. Haskell is hardly slow and he played well too. It’s not just foot speed that gets you to the breakdown though, it’s speed of thought and intent as well. That’s where Scotland excelled.

Actually TJ, all of what you say is right (how often does one say that? 😉 ). Scotland came to compete at the breakdown and really did well. England need to be stronger in that area although they’re handicapped by players like Hape who have no clue what to do and also by the lack of a genuine openside. Lawes and Croft will add some mobility however.

I read in the paper the other day some of the players think Croft is the fastest in the squad, period. Apparently during training Ashton, who to be fair is not actually that quick in out right pace, tried to take Croft on the outside and lost.

I can name one player who is quicker than Varndell though 8)

FTFY

Now, if we’re talking quick rugby players, it shall come to pass that someone shall mention Nigel Walker. And I just did.