Hamish Watson's hit was the most blantant. That was a clear-cut yellow card point blank.
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South Africa vs British and Irish Lions - Test 2
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I deleted it after posting will reply again later when I’m not rushing!
Jakedood
Bench Player
Agreed
But its also pretty poor to say "if we'd got the yellow/red we'd have won"
Shouldn't need to rely on that, especially given no harm came to leroux (as I said was a yellow but altering mindset)
If you need players off the pitch to win, just wear red and sing land of my fathers
I thought Irish people were supposed to be cheerful and easy-going?
I feel most sorry for Eddie
How will he ever possibly top this?
How will he ever possibly top this?
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One hour racist tirade against the other 6 nations countries.
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Whilst this is no guarantee anything will happen, it does appear Erasmus may have gone too far with his comments.
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Has your username ever been more apt?
WR is not unlike any other top-heavy bureaucracy (damn, I always have to take at least 3 tries before the spell checker gives me the all clear on that damned word). The biggest farces are always those involving lopsided bans. I suppose it comes with the territory. TBF I wouldn't even pick up my phone on a Sunday evening for anyone bar family.
The more time I spend away from it I dislike Rassie's approach more though I understand his frustration. I think non-South Africans easily lose sight of 1 bit of context; Our team won a Rugby Championship and then a RWC and then.. boom.. no rugby for almost two years right when we were on a high. So, That puts this series in a unique context in that it amplifies every emotion, right now the main emotion being frustration.
That said I don't like what Erasmus has done here. I am fully behind him showcasing the clips he had but I dislike the insinuations he made and I feel it was poor from him to disclose backroom conversations and get personal the way he did and where he even said he gave assurance of not going to the media relating to private convo's. Leave the insinuations for Gatland. If it was just straight and honest, fine and bugger WR's draconian laws but he went too far and got personal.
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LOL. I bet Rassie wishes he could put that jersey on one last time!
I will try to address the issue from a different angle. Forget Lions vs RSA for a minute, or at least try.
We have a former player, from a tier 1 nation, coach, world cup winner, that looks at a game his team was involved in and does not understand either how the ref is calling the shots or the rules themselves.
And it's not 1 or 2 plays. It's a LOT of the calls. He is not alone and watching how we argue about plays in any thread here is another perfect example.
Just think for a second about this: this guy breaths rugby and cannot explain ~30% of the calls in the most important rugby game of the year. That is a pretty big red flag. Imagine, just picture it for a second, how that impacts the people you want to attract to the sport.
And it's not that the ref made a mistake and we know what the right call should have been. We don't know that either.
This is an issue and an issue that has been dodged for a long time. The elegant excuse is generally something along the lines of 'ref's do not need more pressure'. Fine. bloody fine. Then WR needs to step the **** in and address the issue. Refs need more resources? Better training, more people, twice the pay? (None of that would move the needle at tier 1 btw) Sure, all in, where do I sign?
As long as that comes with no more silly excuses and accountability. I want to know, without much doubt, what the ref should be calling when i watch a play.
As much as you might dislike his methods and particularly his timing, i can't help but to appreciate what RE is doing. I really do. Why? Because a) i think it is very important, b) no one else apparently has the balls to do it and c) he is using his position to make it an issue that has to be at the very least heard.
Let me rephrase: i don't care what the impact is for the tour. I care what the impact is for rugby. I wish, i sincerely wish, every coach would do the same till WR deals with this.
Again, world cup winning coach saying, out loud, 'i do not understand the rules'. Not 'i disagree with the ref here' or 'i saw something different. Again: 'i do not understand how the rules are being enforced'. That is quite a statement.
I for one am very, very happy about this.
We have a former player, from a tier 1 nation, coach, world cup winner, that looks at a game his team was involved in and does not understand either how the ref is calling the shots or the rules themselves.
And it's not 1 or 2 plays. It's a LOT of the calls. He is not alone and watching how we argue about plays in any thread here is another perfect example.
Just think for a second about this: this guy breaths rugby and cannot explain ~30% of the calls in the most important rugby game of the year. That is a pretty big red flag. Imagine, just picture it for a second, how that impacts the people you want to attract to the sport.
And it's not that the ref made a mistake and we know what the right call should have been. We don't know that either.
This is an issue and an issue that has been dodged for a long time. The elegant excuse is generally something along the lines of 'ref's do not need more pressure'. Fine. bloody fine. Then WR needs to step the **** in and address the issue. Refs need more resources? Better training, more people, twice the pay? (None of that would move the needle at tier 1 btw) Sure, all in, where do I sign?
As long as that comes with no more silly excuses and accountability. I want to know, without much doubt, what the ref should be calling when i watch a play.
As much as you might dislike his methods and particularly his timing, i can't help but to appreciate what RE is doing. I really do. Why? Because a) i think it is very important, b) no one else apparently has the balls to do it and c) he is using his position to make it an issue that has to be at the very least heard.
Let me rephrase: i don't care what the impact is for the tour. I care what the impact is for rugby. I wish, i sincerely wish, every coach would do the same till WR deals with this.
Again, world cup winning coach saying, out loud, 'i do not understand the rules'. Not 'i disagree with the ref here' or 'i saw something different. Again: 'i do not understand how the rules are being enforced'. That is quite a statement.
I for one am very, very happy about this.
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He'll call Sexton's mum and give out to her for letting her son keep playing rugby.
The problem is Erasmus making these arguments in good faith in which case there is a fair point here or is it gamesmanship trying to influence the ref?
Sadly it's the latter and not the former.
Dean Cooperfield-West
Bench Player
Refereeing will never be consistent because it's impossible to achieve. You will never have consistency when enforcement is largely interpretation, e.g. what counts as mitigation, what counts as not support body weight, how late does a tackle need to be, how long can an advantage last, when does an attempted interception become an intentional knock on, how many penalties in a centrain area before a card etc...
All of those question have nuance to them. Ultimately, the answer is largely "it depends on the context of the match being played"
You can try to improve consistency but it will never be perfect. It's a pointless complaint to even make
All of those question have nuance to them. Ultimately, the answer is largely "it depends on the context of the match being played"
You can try to improve consistency but it will never be perfect. It's a pointless complaint to even make
You could simplify the rules and make things more clear cut. Better yet, why not have multiple refs on the field? Have one ref watching the attacking team and a ref on the opposite side watching the defending team.
I don’t believe he is trying to influence the ref.
he has stated what was spoken about and then the lack of continuity from said conversations.
How one team has 8 seconds of advantage and another almost identical line break 22 seconds.
How a tip tackle isn’t punished.
I think you’re missing the point he is making in the fact that, the referee was not unbiased (subconscious obviously.)
If this is something that needs to be done to get the 50/50 calls 50/50 then so be it.
There may be an element of give us a shot at those calls, but why should he have to do this?? It’s a joke that you cannot get clarification until 72 hours after.
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Ignoring the Rassie whirlwind and focusing on some stadium news. Western Province's next two games that were meant to be played at Cape Town Stadium have been shifted to Newlands, which means that the turf won't get further shredded a day before the test... and that Newlands is still fully operational in terms of being able to host rugby.
You're very gullible if you genuinely believe that. If I at 36 having never actually played rugby (watched alot) can understand that different referees have different styles (usually based on where they've been trained) and can make the odd mistake for being fallable human beings. I'm fairly certain a 48 year old world ex international player and world cup winning coach knows exactly why it happens and it isn't anything he's claiming in the media. He also doesn't need clarification he wants to influence the game coming up.
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If he was arguing in good faith, he would not be doing it by posting a 1 hour long video on social media for god sake...
This is a publicity stunt and an attempt to influence the refs.
Fairish point but if his arguments had no substance his motives would be irrelevant. I do grant you that is he is trying to influence the ref (at least i believe he is), but he is trying and can only do because WR left a vacuum the size of a continent there in terms of interpretation.
Are the refs gonna call the off-sides at ruck this game? Who the **** knows?
Scrums? Let's flip a coin.
Tackles? Let's see how the refs woke up that day.
That level of uncertainty has consequences. These are some of those. WR created the breeding ground for these things to flourish. Now they cry foul when their own creations goes after them?
Don't expect my sympathy. In fact, i hope it grows.
I am not particularly happy about the consequences RE's words have on the tour. I am very excited about the consequences they could (potentially) have on WR.
The problem is how do you handle it? Brian Moore raised it earlier in the day Referee's use to have pre match briefings with coaches. The point being to explain any specific they were looking at and how they wanted the game to be played. Coaches started using the sessions to influence the ref by showing them video of the opposition and their interpretation telling the ref how to manage the game. So they had to be ditched.
Playing the ref and understanding their view of the game because rugby is a complicated to officiate has always been a apart of rugby. You'll never get standardised officiating especially at international level because of cultural influences on how the game is played. You think most French refs naturally turn out that rubbish? But you go to domestic levels and you'll find it more consistent the top English refs even though they aren't as good will manage a game more or less like Barnes because that's how they've been taught. Someone in NZ is taught by entirely different people and thus have another style.
We get the same in my industry there are usually 50 ways solve a problem and a person influences will likely dictate how that they decide to proceed. Its the same with all complex decision making which a lot of calls in rugby are.
Point is you can't fix it, you'll always get bum calls (and they should be called out but as noted there's only really one from the previous match) most refs are pretty consistent within a match. And the next ref will probably be to just not between refs.
No, it's not just that. That is arguably the best-case scenario. If at least they were consistent that would eventually balance out evnetually, but no.
********. They didn't have to ditch that, they chose to. Not quite the same.
You know what? Make those sessions public. Open them. You'd educate the audience.
Nonsense. The lack of clarity is there by design, not because of the complexity of the game itself. The time used to give an advantage is one of the best examples. It's at the ref's discretion when it could be easily stipulated and be dealt with. It's not difficult to manage, they chose to make it difficult. Again, not quite the same.
Ridiculous. You can't fix everything, but you can improve a lot of the issues we have nowadays, from a clearer understanding of what the **** you can and cannot do when tackling to what happens at the ruck, from going for a ball in the air to flipping someone while tackling. You have journalists specialized in rugby who tweet that a tackler cannot lead with the shoulder. We've reached a level of madness that needs to be dealt with.
Same with the term 'wrapping'.
Putting everything in one bag and saying you cant fix it because you find the timing and the manner of the complaint inconvenient is just absurd.
Dean Cooperfield-West
Bench Player
You want two refs?
What happens if they disagree? What happens if one blows when the other didn't see anything wrong and wanted a free-flowing game? That's just asking for problems.
Simplifying the rules could work. The game will end up looking like something from the 80/90s
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The thing is you can simplify the rules but the result of that is more gets left to interpretation, which is kinda the problem people are complaining about. Simpler rules also leave more room for exploitation and will invariably start a process of clarifying again and before you know it, you are back at complex rules. Rugby is a complex and dynamic game. Such a game cannot by its very nature have simple rules and maintain any of consistency in how they are applied.
I mean can you name any laws that could actually be simplified in a way that would be beneficial? It's like governments forever saying they will simplify laws and tax systems before realising it didn't achieve what they wanted. The complexity of the laws is not the issue, it's the inherent difficulty of reffing the game that is the issue. Short of some sort of AI with cameras all over the place that can see every infringement, we will never get that.
On another note, it would be interesting if we ever did train AI to function as refs.
I mean can you name any laws that could actually be simplified in a way that would be beneficial? It's like governments forever saying they will simplify laws and tax systems before realising it didn't achieve what they wanted. The complexity of the laws is not the issue, it's the inherent difficulty of reffing the game that is the issue. Short of some sort of AI with cameras all over the place that can see every infringement, we will never get that.
On another note, it would be interesting if we ever did train AI to function as refs.
bargepole
Academy Player
Yes, and while you're at it, reduce the teams to 11 players a side, allow one forward pass in each move, and stop the game whenever a ball carrier is tackled. Also allow a specialist kicker to come off the bench for any place kicks. Oh hang on, isn't there already a version where they do all that???
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Two refs is a good idea, or even allowing touch judges make a call without having to consult the ref on something clear cut is a good idea to be honest. There's far too much going on for one ref to see.
Ditto English fans, just look at the threads here when England lost, lots of ref complaints
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Youd just need to make sure the refs had clearly defined and mutually exclusive roles
eg one ref for the breakdown, one fir everything else
hipefully Technology can soon get to the point of helping a tmo do it. The tmo would just need a slider that they could control in a touch screen which showed the offside line based on where they touch the screen, ie a line parallel to the try line. And, even better, highlighted all players that were on one side of that line when the tmo pressed a button.
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Its a cruel irony that WR leaves the interpretation of the laws (and which ones to focus on or even bother with) open so they have more flex on how to ref, depending on what they think will create a more entertaining game; yet, theyre making it less entertaining.
Some terrible ideas on here. Most games I watch (in fact all) are reffed slightly differently. WR should work on that before we add another ref or let an AI run things. There is a marked difference in the breakdown between the north and south and that would be a good area to focus on.
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