Hey guys,
Thought it might be worth having a separate thread for this because its a huge part of the game, but also because I noticed it dominated/overshaddowed much of the discussion in the England Fiji thread and thought perhaps keeping it separate on occasion might be nice. I wondered therefore whether an ongoing thread dedicated to this sort of stuff for the World Cup might be nice.
To get the ball rolling, and after thinking about today's game a little more here are a few thoughts I had from the game.
1) What do people think about the apparent increase in TMO use during the game for foul play? Or was it just an anomaly of this particular game? I heard on the radio today that it is an objective/priority of World Rugby for this World Cup and the officials have been instructed to clamp down and as such to use the TMO more. On the one hand I think it's good as it may clean up some of the rubbish that goes on, but on the other it significantly slows down the game, advantaging some teams and disadvantaging others, and also using one of today's incidents as an example, the English lad that go penalised for going round the neck when clearing a guy from the maul, I feel it could get a little pedantic. I understand that should be a penalty but in my experience that sort of stuff happens so much that if we stop the game every time we are concerned something like that has occurred we might be at risk of severely damaging the flow of the game. Thoughts?
2) The disallowing of Matawalu's try. Now I understand that technically the decision was correct and that anytime up until the conversion attempt, a previously awarded try can be disallowed, BUT, does anyone else have concerns that bias may influence what will and won't gutted picked up? I guess I have questions here more than anything so here goes: Who decides what to put up on the big screen for the crowd to see? Are they World Rugby officials, and are they impartial? I heard the answer is yes to both so if that is the case then I guess all is good. Second, can the TMO intervene at any stage after a try has been awarded. I.e. regardless of what is shown on the big screen, can the TMO advise the ref that there is a potential problem with an awarded try and therefore stop play to get it reviewed? If that later is the case, then does this not effectively mean that every try is subject to TMO review?
Thought it might be worth having a separate thread for this because its a huge part of the game, but also because I noticed it dominated/overshaddowed much of the discussion in the England Fiji thread and thought perhaps keeping it separate on occasion might be nice. I wondered therefore whether an ongoing thread dedicated to this sort of stuff for the World Cup might be nice.
To get the ball rolling, and after thinking about today's game a little more here are a few thoughts I had from the game.
1) What do people think about the apparent increase in TMO use during the game for foul play? Or was it just an anomaly of this particular game? I heard on the radio today that it is an objective/priority of World Rugby for this World Cup and the officials have been instructed to clamp down and as such to use the TMO more. On the one hand I think it's good as it may clean up some of the rubbish that goes on, but on the other it significantly slows down the game, advantaging some teams and disadvantaging others, and also using one of today's incidents as an example, the English lad that go penalised for going round the neck when clearing a guy from the maul, I feel it could get a little pedantic. I understand that should be a penalty but in my experience that sort of stuff happens so much that if we stop the game every time we are concerned something like that has occurred we might be at risk of severely damaging the flow of the game. Thoughts?
2) The disallowing of Matawalu's try. Now I understand that technically the decision was correct and that anytime up until the conversion attempt, a previously awarded try can be disallowed, BUT, does anyone else have concerns that bias may influence what will and won't gutted picked up? I guess I have questions here more than anything so here goes: Who decides what to put up on the big screen for the crowd to see? Are they World Rugby officials, and are they impartial? I heard the answer is yes to both so if that is the case then I guess all is good. Second, can the TMO intervene at any stage after a try has been awarded. I.e. regardless of what is shown on the big screen, can the TMO advise the ref that there is a potential problem with an awarded try and therefore stop play to get it reviewed? If that later is the case, then does this not effectively mean that every try is subject to TMO review?
