The Rugby Union Thread

scrumhalf

Jones has previous for calling players up and either giving them one cap or not bothering to pick them at all.

We'll get Paolo Odogwu back having not had a competitive game for weeks and probably having what makes him worthy of a call-up coached out of him by the national coaches.

Meanwhile, the RFU's plan to ensure that Saracens end up in the Prem next season continues. 

rsvmark

TimmyO said:

Fretwired said:

Fair play to the ref .. he's admitted he made the wrong decision on the two tries in question. In fairness he wasn't just him .. the TMO influenced him.

Not sure it would have changed the result though. England's discipline is an issue.

Ooh has he? I shall go for a read 

Oooo, where?

koneguitarist

Has he said how many other things he got wrong like Curry playing the ball whilst lying on the floor?
so often England have been gifted decisions now it’s against them it’s all ref this ref that?

TimmyO

koneguitarist said:

Has he said how many other things he got wrong like Curry playing the ball whilst lying on the floor?
so often England have been gifted decisions now it’s against them it’s all ref this ref that?

I don’t think it’s that - those 2 main decisions would stand out in any tournament let alone a single game 

axisus

koneguitarist said:

so often England have been gifted decisions now it’s against them it’s all ref this ref that?

What a load of bollocks! However rubbish England are, a sh*te ref is a sh*te ref. 

sev112

It’s not as if England are losing lots of games,  World Cup Final runners up, won 6 nations, won Autumn cup.  lost against Scotland and lost against Wales.  

The reasons EJ carries on with his strategy is because it is extremely successful over time and at the important time at world cups.  Why on Earth would he listen to people like us.  

If we’d been dumped out the the World Cup in the round robin, got 4th or 5th in last years 6N, and lost several games over autumn then these 2 losses might be a problem

koneguitarist

So two incidents which has people undecided whether they are right or wrong, yet a lot of incidents in past matches where England have benefitted.
Even last Autumn 5here were issues with Poite favouring England.
2018 Anscombe deemed not to have scored in corner by TMO yet clearly shows he touched down first. 

2008 Johnny Wilkinson swinging arm tackle lays out Jonathan Thomas who is out of game, not even a penalty. 

But England was hard done by! and by two incidents one of which you could accuse Wales of Gamesmanship, the other Knockon? Depends on how you interpret the laws and whose side you are on. 

hywelg

sev112 said:

 Why on Earth would he listen to people like us.  

I think it's fairly certain that he doesn't.

Unless he's interested in which amp @Gassage is currently playing. Or he isn't a fan of Bigsbys' on Les Pauls

TimmyO

koneguitarist said:

So two incidents which has people undecided whether they are right or wrong, yet a lot of incidents in past matches where England have benefitted.
Even last Autumn 5here were issues with Poite favouring England.
2018 Anscombe deemed not to have scored in corner by TMO yet clearly shows he touched down first. 

2008 Johnny Wilkinson swinging arm tackle lays out Jonathan Thomas who is out of game, not even a penalty. 

But England was hard done by! and by two incidents one of which you could accuse Wales of Gamesmanship, the other Knockon? Depends on how you interpret the laws and whose side you are on. 

you get that what happens on one occasion doesn't change what happens on another right? all of those incidents can be true (I don't recall and can't be bothered going and finding footage of the older ones but if they are as you say they sound like they were mistakes too) 

sev112

koneguitarist said:

So two incidents which has people undecided whether they are right or wrong, yet a lot of incidents in past matches where England have benefitted.
Even last Autumn 5here were issues with Poite favouring England.
2018 Anscombe deemed not to have scored in corner by TMO yet clearly shows he touched down first. 

2008 Johnny Wilkinson swinging arm tackle lays out Jonathan Thomas who is out of game, not even a penalty. 

But England was hard done by! and by two incidents one of which you could accuse Wales of Gamesmanship, the other Knockon? Depends on how you interpret the laws and whose side you are on. 

Blimey - 2008  

koneguitarist

Just been looking at the law on the knock on in Rugby. It has changed over the years. 

But reading it correctly if you knock ball on and catch it, before it hits ground or another player  it’s a knock on. Which is not something I expected. I thought ball had to be knocked forward hitting floor or opponent or an own team mate to be considered a knock on. 

koneguitarist

So a lot of tries should have been disallowed over the years then. 

koneguitarist

Looking at this try at 2:38 by Josh Adam’s against England in 2019, try or no try?
https://youtu.be/--ufH3nidOk

Gulliver

Neill said:

No-one has mentioned it yet I don't think but my goodness England are missing Joe Launchbury.  IMHO he is more important to England than Itoje, a bit like Scotland's Jonny Gray, not flash, just a hard working big lump who rarely gets on the wrong side of the ref.

I think Itoje would make a superb bench replacement rather than starting - imagine having Itoje come in at 60 minutes and bring all his disruption to change up the rhythm of the game. It's the exact same reason I think Danny Care is the best off-the-bench scrum-half England have had for years.

Neill

koneguitarist said:

Just been looking at the law on the knock on in Rugby. It has changed over the years. 

But reading it correctly if you knock ball on and catch it, before it hits ground or another player  it’s a knock on. Which is not something I expected. I thought ball had to be knocked forward hitting floor or opponent or an own team mate to be considered a knock on. 

Must admit I thought the same, but when you think about it if the laws allowed a player to knock the ball forward in the air it would mean that they could legitimately throw the ball over an opponents head and catch it which is clearly not within the ethos of rugby.  

But I can think of many occasions when a pass has not been taken cleanly and the ball has been "knocked on" in this fashion yet the ref has not called for a scrum.  It will be interesting to see how much this changes the game in future.

crunchman

I read an article on that incident that said if you regain possession before it hits the ground, it's not a knock on.  In this case he didn't regain possession and it hit his leg, so it should have been a knock on.

The first try was utterly dreadful though.  There is no way that Wales should have been allowed to play it like that when England hadn't had time to set the defence.

As badly as England played, those two decisions did change the match.  England lost their composure after going down like that.  It would have been a completely different match, and we will never know how it would have turned out.

As for the Welsh whinging about other decisions that went England's way, there were other decisions that didn't as well as the two big ones.  There was one penalty Jonathan Davies said was harsh in commentary.  You see people getting away with far worse blocks that the one against Dan Robson for impeding a kick chase all the time as well.  Maybe that is technically a penalty, which is fine, but call it consistently.

The first 3 or 4 scrums also went down, and the ref told the scrum half to use it and didn't penalise anyone.  Wales got away with that.

Most of those decisions will even themselves out, but those two "tries" set the whole tone of the match.  Yes England should have held their composure better, but the Welsh should not be complaining about the ref favouring England.  That's totally ridiculous.

koneguitarist

@crunchman I thought the same as long as it doesn't hit floor or player a player can knock ball up catch an regather then play on. Which I think we have all seen a few times by all teams. But according to law it says a player must not knock ball forward. Which if that's the rule, yes LRZ did knock ball forward then it went backwards off his leg then onto English player then to ground. So decision Saturday was wrong, but so were a lot more in previous matches. 

I agree to a certain extent the first couple of tries were ref giving us the 50/50 or rub of the green as some would call it. 
But there were a lot of incidents in match where England benefitted as well. 
So as a Welshman yes for once I am quite happy that we got the luck as so many times it's been against us and everybody says ah sour grapes, swings and roundabouts etc. Well that's exactly what it sounds like to us as well. English players gave away a shit load of penalties some really stupid ones like Genge and Hill, but don't you think if Ref was so against you Itoje would have had a yellow card? 

digitalscream

koneguitarist said:

I agree to a certain extent the first couple of tries were ref giving us the 50/50 or rub of the green as some would call it. 

That's not really accurate, though. One of those tries was quite literally engineered by the ref - tell the captain to have a word with his players, wait until they're in a huddle with acres of space both sides, then call "time on" and...try.

That's not 50/50, that's not the rub of the green. It's plain cheating.

koneguitarist

Neill said:

koneguitarist said:

Just been looking at the law on the knock on in Rugby. It has changed over the years. 

But reading it correctly if you knock ball on and catch it, before it hits ground or another player  it’s a knock on. Which is not something I expected. I thought ball had to be knocked forward hitting floor or opponent or an own team mate to be considered a knock on. 

Must admit I thought the same, but when you think about it if the laws allowed a player to knock the ball forward in the air it would mean that they could legitimately throw the ball over an opponents head and catch it which is clearly not within the ethos of rugby.  

But I can think of many occasions when a pass has not been taken cleanly and the ball has been "knocked on" in this fashion yet the ref has not called for a scrum.  It will be interesting to see how much this changes the game in future.

Didn't the Gloucester winger do that against Lomu at Twickenham in a Baa Baa game. Forgot his name, as Lomu went to smash him he popped ball in air then regathered and skinned Lomu on outside. Can't remember name now double barrelled name fast as hell, but only picked for England a couple of times. 

crunchman

koneguitarist said:

@crunchman I thought the same as long as it doesn't hit floor or player a player can knock ball up catch an regather then play on. Which I think we have all seen a few times by all teams. But according to law it says a player must not knock ball forward. Which if that's the rule, yes LRZ did knock ball forward then it went backwards off his leg then onto English player then to ground. So decision Saturday was wrong, but so were a lot more in previous matches. 

I agree to a certain extent the first couple of tries were ref giving us the 50/50 or rub of the green as some would call it. 
But there were a lot of incidents in match where England benefitted as well. 
So as a Welshman yes for once I am quite happy that we got the luck as so many times it's been against us and everybody says ah sour grapes, swings and roundabouts etc. Well that's exactly what it sounds like to us as well. English players gave away a shit load of penalties some really stupid ones like Genge and Hill, but don't you think if Ref was so against you Itoje would have had a yellow card? 

Some of the ones against Itoje were marginal calls.  To me, one of the ones where he was pinged offside looked fine.  The one where he got penalised for ripping the ball was not exactly cynical cheating either.  He ripped the ball out really well - it's just that his knee was on the ground.  I know I'm viewing it with English tinted spectacles, but it's not the kind of cynical play that deserves to be carded.  If you want cynical play, you get that from the other side from AWJ.