Rugby - RIP Jonah Lomu.

[The Anti-Targ]

Every time I watch the All Blacks the refs favour them. Every time. I don't know what it is.

Last year against Ireland as well. England last year against NZ the same story.

Now they award a try for New Zealand after Johnny May puts England up 5-0. It wasn't a try. Clearly not. Video ref wasn't even consulted.

Fuck up by the ref IMO. It completely helps NZ in the saddle. Then they get a penalty in the first half for a supposed late tackle. It wasn't late, he threw the ball just as the English player hit him, that should be fine. Again 3 free points from the ref.

It just annoys me.

Riiiight, the ABs get yellow carded after the TMO says it wasn;t worth a yellow card, and the ref is favouring them. And to my eyes the ball scraped the chalk for Cruden's try, so it was a legit decision. I think Whitelock was denied a try actually, seemed like there was enough downward pressure for it to be a try.

AAAAND the ref decides, based on a slow mo replay and a bunch of crowd booing to re-look at a try which was unequivocally scored after Barret has set himself to take the conversion. That is total BS. Seems to me like the ref was playing to the crowd.

It is such BS to suggest that the only way the ABS win is because the refs call in their favour. How about an early scrum penalty against the ABs when clearly the ABs were dominant in the scrum and going forward? That was a free 3 points for England that shouldn't have been. So 23 out of the last 25 games the ABs have won and it's all down to ref favouritism? When the fact of the matter is it seems a lot of the recent games the ABs have been yellow carded, sometimes more than once, and yet they still win. Not much favouritism there I think.

[williamjm]

Decent performance from Scotland.

Bring on the All Blacks!

Scoring five tries was impressive, even if they missed a couple more opportunities. They did seem to get a bit complacent in the second half and conceded a couple of silly tries but it was still one of Scotland's better performances. It probably helped that Argentina was terrible aside from their replacement scrum-half.

I think if they make the same sort of mistakes against the All Blacks that they made against Argentina they'll get punished very severely. I think the best we can hope for is that they manage to score some tries as a consolation for losing.

I'm so fucking bored of losing. The refereeing was bad today but we just don't seem to have the ability to win close matches.

I missed the last 10 minutes of the Wales match, but I wasn't at all surprised to find out that they'd managed to lose narrowly again despite having played well in the bits of the match I did see.

[The Marquis de Leech]

So 23 out of the last 25 games the ABs have won and it's all down to ref favouritism?

42 out of the last 46 (plus two draws) while we're at it.

[Antonius Pius]

Well, to me the AB's looked in control most of the time... The momentum they had even when Coles (?) was sin binned was very impressive. Their passing was very quick and fluent at times, and of course they must have lots of confidence. They don't panic when it's not going their way.

BTW, I loved that the Australian player (didn't catch who it was) replied to the ref's comment with "thank you, Sir".

[lessthanluke]

Riiiight, the ABs get yellow carded after the TMO says it wasn;t worth a yellow card, and the ref is favouring them.

The TMO was clearly fucking high at that point.

[lessthanluke]

BTW, I loved that the Australian player (didn't catch who it was) replied to the ref's comment with "thank you, Sir".

That is the standard response to the ref in rugby. Taught that from a young age.

[Antonius Pius]

Still, nice contrast to football where the ref is usually threatened by the players [emoji6]

[Talleyrand]

Watching the Argentina game in the pub yesterday there were two sentiments that were said over and over again "Scotland's doing surprisingly well" and "fucking Wayne Barnes"

[Davrum]

Still, nice contrast to football where the ref is usually threatened by the players [emoji6]

Agree one million percent. As much as I love football the behaviour of the players towards the referees is just embarrassing. Rugby has it right in that area.

[Calibandar]

Riiiight, the ABs get yellow carded after the TMO says it wasn;t worth a yellow card, and the ref is favouring them. And to my eyes the ball scraped the chalk for Cruden's try, so it was a legit decision. I think Whitelock was denied a try actually, seemed like there was enough downward pressure for it to be a try.

The TMO was wrong though, as everyone could see on the big screen. The TMO, astonishingly said that it was " not his recommendation" to give a yellow card. The ref thought that was suspicious ince he asked for the yellow card to be confirmed, it seemed like yellow to him at first glance.He had it pulled to the big screen, and then made the only decision he could. It would have been favouring New Zealand not give yellow. He kicked him on the ankle. Hard.

As for the try, it simply wasn't one. You can't push the ball across the line and expect it to be given. That's why 80,000 people cried in unison, that was awful.

Proof:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkMUQvYiuqA

It is such BS to suggest that the only way the ABS win is because the refs call in their favour.

I'm not suggesting that they only win because of that, obviously. Just that whenever I watch a game of theirs ( which is world cup or autumn internationals) I frequently see them get a lot of calls that don't seem right and lead to direct points. As if they're just given the benefit of the doubt more. They could still be the best team without the refs favouring them, and probably are.

[Davrum]

The point about England's penalty try isn't that they didn't deserve a try - I would have given it too - it's that if the ref really was favouring NZ he wouldn't have given it. He didn't have to, it was a 50/50 call. But he did, because he wasn't favouring NZ. The same with the yellow card. He had an out from the madman in the TMO booth if he wanted to favour NZ, but he didn't. Because he wasn't favouring NZ.

Cruden's try was dodgy but denying Sam Whitelock was just as dodgy (reminded me of the equally stupid TMO denying of an England try last week in the Four Nations League). Both sides got bad calls. It all comes out in the wash.

[ljkeane]

Cruden's try was dodgy but denying Sam Whitelock was just as dodgy (reminded me of the equally stupid TMO denying of an England try last week in the Four Nations League). Both sides got bad calls. It all comes out in the wash.

The difference with the denied try for Hall in the rugby league was he definitely grounded the ball over the line, with Whitelock's attempt you can't really tell. He definitely gets downward pressure on the front of the ball but you can't tell if that bit of the ball is on the line, if it is it's a try, if it's not it's a knock on. You can't be giving a try like that unless you're certain. With the Cruden one you can't really tell from the tv pictures if he makes contact with the line with his first motion or not, like with low catches in cricket tv replays aren't particularly good for tight call from a distance like that. I don't think the TMO could have given it but Owens was right there and he said it was a try, that's fair enough for me.

Honestly I don't think there's a great deal to worry about with either decision. They might have gone the other way but I don't think either of them were shocking calls.

[The Marquis de Leech]

As for the try, it simply wasn't one. You can't push the ball across the line and expect it to be given. That's why 80,000 people cried in unison, that was awful.

On the line is a try.

[The Anti-Targ]

Hmmmm so what do people think about an NFL style coach's appeal of decisions? Steve Hansen is calling for it. Personally I think it's problematic especially if the coach gets to appeal after watching a few slow mo's. If there's going to be an appeal system then it should be up to the captain, and only on scoring decisions and only 2 phases before the score, and before any big screen slow mo's are shown.

It also needs to be totally reinforced that refs cannot second guess their decisions after seeing big screen slow mo's that are not a result of asking for a TMO call. Refs need to pretend the big screens don't exist except when they use them officially.

[lessthanluke]

It also needs to be totally reinforced that refs cannot second guess their decisions after seeing big screen slow mo's that are not a result of asking for a TMO call. Refs need to pretend the big screens don't exist except when they use them officially.

Why?

[The Marquis de Leech]

Hmmmm so what do people think about an NFL style coach's appeal of decisions?

Terrible idea. Would result in endless stoppages, and undermine the referee's role.

Better to just let bad decisions be a case of swings and roundabouts. A few Wayne Barneses are the price we pay for not having an 80 minute game last two hours, and if the referee is demonstrably bad, just don't give them any more matches.

[The Anti-Targ]

Why?

You actually have to ask?

Because that gives the broadcast director control of the game not the ref. The broadcast director can choose what to play in slow mo replay and what not to play. Broadcast directors are not required to be impartial so they can replay and replay a bad decision they don't like, and not replay a bad decision they do like. I'm all for using technology to make better decisions, but control of that technology must be in the exclusive hands of the match officials.

[Calibandar]

On the line is a try.

Correct. However, landing well before the line, and then pushing it towards ( and not even over) the line, is not a try. The ref made a mistake.

[Davrum]

Terrible idea. Would result in endless stoppages ...

It's rugby union mate, it's nothing but endless stoppages already. :lol:

[The Anti-Targ]

Correct. However, landing well before the line, and then pushing it towards ( and not even over) the line, is not a try. The ref made a mistake.

I don't think it's quite so straight forward, there are circumstances where the ball can be grounded short of the line and then grounded on or over the line and it's a legit try. The ref has to make a judgement call on double movement in those situations. I think replayes satisfied the criteria that the ball touched the try line, so from that perspective the ball was touched down within the try scoring area. If there was a mistake then it was on the issue of double movement, and I think on that score momentum was never fully stopped from the initial grounding to the ball hitting the line. Which means I think it was a legit try.

Turns out it is legit for the ref to review a try any time before the conversion is kicked, fair enough. However I still don't think replays run at the order of the broadcaster's director should be allowed to be the reason for the ref to carry out the review, and it was clear with Faumuina's try that it was the big screen replay and the crowd booing which gave Owens pause, and not legitimately so because the try was clearly scored.

I don't think Coach appeals should stop the game any more than the ref going direct to the TMO. The coach could have a direct line to the TMO and would say "appeal+reason" whence the TMO would tell the ref that the try was being reviewed. But I think it's only fair to appeal without the benefit of re-plays. One unsuccessful appeal per side per game would ensure coaches only appeal when they are 99.9% certain, and it's pretty rare for there to be more than one or 2 legitimately appealable incidents in a game. I'm still not in favour of the idea of a coach's appeal. I'd be more comfortable with a captain's appeal.