Rugby Union Thread

[VillaZogmariner]

Army v Navy today at Twickenham.

Come on the Royals.

Army 44-10 Navy

As it should be.

I suppose it helps when you have a team full of Fijians, who's only job in the Army is to play rugby. Whereas ours go to sea for most of the year.

[paul_e]

As big a refereeing error as you'll ever see in football from the tigers vs saints game.  Full arm swing punch to the face  and only gets a yellow.  The good thing with Rugby though is that he'll probably get an 8-12 match ban thrown at him on monday (which ironically means there's no chance of him getting into the england squad for the world cup), in football they'd refuse to even comment on it.

For anyone who hasn't seen the big call from it

The result was a yellow card each

[cheltenhamlion]

Shocker of a decision not to send him off. Sky don't appear to be showing Gloucester and Saracens tomorrow.

[paul_e]

Is it not on ESPN?

EDIT: Yes it is on ESPN, 1:30 programme start

[PaulWinch again]

It was appalling, he should get a long ban for that.

[cheltenhamlion]

No ESPN in this house. It won't be on at the local. A free stream anywhere?

[lovejoy]

Paul_e in rugby the ban is often a length of time rather than a specific number of matches. I suspect he will get a reasonable length ban but ultimately only miss one game. Typical classless Leicester.

[paul_e]

Paul_e in rugby the ban is often a length of time rather than a specific number of matches. I suspect he will get a reasonable length ban but ultimately only miss one game. Typical classless Leicester.

Depends on the time of the season in my playing experience.  Given this happened in the playoff a ban of x weeks would be effectively a 1 match ban so I'd expect it to either be a number of matches or more likely a ban starting from the first game of the season.  Unfortunately both of those options would effectively rule him out of the world cup squad and I think they've been planning on taking him along so he might well get a much leaner punishment than it deserved.  Fingers crossed they do ban him and England take the much more effective Anthony Allen instead.

For the record I'd have given him a yellow for the tackle that led to it all, let alone the punches afterwards.  I thought Ashton was actually really good to not react much worse than he did.  Was a cowards tackle and not something that's nice to see of the supposed future of the english backs.

[UK Redsox]

The Forest of Dean's own Wayne Barnes is getting rightly slated for not sending Tuilagi off. This is the problem with the sin-bin system; offences that used to be sendings off are now treated too leniently.

[cheltenhamlion]

To be fair, Barnes had his back to it. It was the shitty touch judge that made the call.

[lovejoy]

Exactly Barnes did exactly what he should have donw and consult his touch judge. For me the touch judge needs a bit of retraining/gardening leave because he made up the fact that players exchanged punches. If he said he didn't have a clear view I could live with it but as he made something up he needs to be punished in some way as this effectively cost Saints the game.

[lovejoy]

5 weeks so effectively one game. The Leicester mafia strike again. Olivier Azam gets 14 weeks for freeing his leg.
It stinks no wonder they win the league each year they are the Man Utd of rugby.

[Gareth]

Worcester back in Premiership....fair play!!

[cheltenhamlion]

They'll soon go down again! The Tuilagi ban is a joke. Keeps him nice and free for summer internationals I note.

[UK Redsox]

They'll soon go down again! The Tuilagi ban is a joke. Keeps him nice and free for summer internationals I note.

In the pre-professional era, a punch like that would have lead to a ban of several months not just a few weeks