Glasgow v Dragons

[An Tarbh]

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Glasgow v Dragons

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Glasgow will be looking to bounce back from their Christmas defeat at Murrayfield when they entertain the Dragons at Firhill. The Dragons will be looking to overtake the Ospreys and get into an automatic qualifying spot for the Heineken Cup, who says the Magners League is meaningless???

An interesting one to call though this one, given the home record of Glasgow you'd expect them to get the win but the Dragons have taken the spoils on 7 out of the last 8 times that they've met.

 

[Incredible Schalk]

Terrible result for Glasgow, especially after such a good start. Two wins in a row for the Dragons, they have recovered nicely since that home loss by Treviso.

 

[ecks tartan army]

bad result, but at times Glasgow were making the same basic mistakes that cost us at murrayfield.

However, and I apologise for the fact i do seem to mention this allot (but it was certainly true last night), the standard of refereeing was apalling!!! OK, Glasgow did make allot of mistakes and didnt really create much - but it didnt help that every time we did create something a crazy refereeing decision was made and the chance gone!

first of all, about 20 mins in (warriors leading 6-0) Gibson sends the ball out to Hef on the wing, and runs up behind him in support - or at least tries to but is tripped up by a dragons player. Vickery earned himself a 3-match ban for that in the world cup, yet the linesman was 10 yards away and didnt spot it!!!! Now if the linesman saw it, why wasnt it brought to the refs attention? and if he didnt see it, should he really be officiating at this level?

then soon after the dragons try, Parks had a bit of inspiration, chipping the ball over the dragons defence where it bounced into Gibsons hands on halfway. He then offloaded to hef who wasnt gonna be brought down until well into the dragons 22. The ref gives an unexplained penalty for which the extend their lead! The only reason i can think of is offside, but there is now way in hell either gibson or hef were infront of parks!

Then into the second half, the warriors through a wild pass out wide - but meanwhile 40 yards away in the centre of the pitch one of our guys is shoulder charged under the posts but the ref isnt interested!

And then as if that wasnt enough, with just minutes remaining the dragons are in control of the ball when suddenly it slips out the side of a maul and is kicked towards the line by one of our guys. needless to say, several players give chase - one of whom was 50/50 with the dragons defence to get there first until another dragons player knocks him over: professional foul=penalty+yelllow at least, potentially a red and pen try. Refs decision? 22 drop out! :?

and then there were various others. almost every single ruck saw the dragons offside. were they penalised for it? once, in the third minute! The warriors pack put on several big drives causing the dragons players to lift to avoid loosing the ball. was a penalty ever given for it? no! and full time. I was under the impression the ball had to go out of play to blow for full time? because hef had the ball, that hadnt been knocked on and he was on the pitch. he makes a pass back to anyone willing to take it that also lands on the pitch and the whistle goes! sorry, what?

And thats before you mention the fact he had us all confused by making up hand signals!

anyway, rant over. Hopefully we will get back to winning ways next week against Viadana otherwise our season is over!

 

[Warriors#1]

the standard of referees this season has been shocking, not to mention the linesmen.

Anyway, has Sean Lineen said on Radio Scotland after the match, 'Newport didnt win the match, Glasgow lost it.'

but when your playing poorly, the last thing you want is a rubbish ref.

 

[ecks tartan army]

the standard of referees this season has been shocking, not to mention the linesmen.

Anyway, has Sean Lineen said on Radio Scotland after the match, 'Newport didnt win the match, Glasgow lost it.'

but when your playing poorly, the last thing you want is a rubbish ref. [/b]

agreed we played shite at times.



however what struck me is the number of incidents that the ref gets wrong where the linesman must have seen what happened - yet refuses to draw attention to it. And its not just us in Glasgow of that opinion, I was in Belfast last week and speaking to some friends it appears that is the feeling on the terraces at Ravenhill also.



infact, come to think of it, the only big call a linesman has made at firhill this season was wrong - with a Thom Evans try being chalked off despite TV replays showing clearly that he didnt go into touch.