International Rugby

[Rory]

England have more public schoolboys than the other five nations combined. They should pretty much always win this tournament at a canter. Yet when they, invariably, fuck it up, it's always unfair and somebody else's fault, somehow.

Haha, we've missed you.

[Jon Crofts]

England have more public schoolboys than the other five nations combined. They should pretty much always win this tournament at a canter. Yet when they, invariably, fuck it up, it's always unfair and somebody else's fault, somehow.

I wasn’t expecting England to win the 6N or probably even yesterday but 2 weekends on the trot a French referee has ruined a game with shit decisions. They’re fucking useless.

[tomd2103]

Whether you agree with the law or not it was absolutely 100% a red card. Head on head contact which sees the opponent fail a HIA is exactly what they want to get rid of with the law changes over the last few years.

Ewels fucked up and is experienced enough to know better  I have no sympathy for him and no complaints about the decision.

Where the ref was in the wrong was to not show the same care to Sinckler as he had to Ryan.

I also agree with the comment about the scrum, we were trashing them and their only answer was to collapse it. Collapsing the acrum is also very dangerous and something that is supposed to be stamped out so I'm not sure why he kept just giving pens but not getting out a card.

Final one, I think Henderson was very lucky to not get a yellow for handling on the floor. It was such a blatant bit of cheating that any decent ref would book him purely to set a marker that they wouldn't take that sort of bullshit. I've been given 2 yellows in my life and both were for prety much exactly what he did.

By the current laws of the game, it was 100%, all day long, a red card.  I agree there was no intent and it was harsh, but the thinking is that Ewels was in the wrong position to make the tackle which caused dangerous contact to the head.

The refereeing of rugby is wildly inconsistent, but if Henderson was lucky to avoid yellow, then Itoje was also massively fortunate when he grabbed the arm of the Irish scrum half in a ruck on England's line.  The ref even had his card out, but did a strange u-turn. 

[Villan82]

I don't feel the nationality of the referee should come into it.

[tomd2103]

I don't feel the nationality of the referee should come into it.

It does in rugby as they referee certain aspects of the game differently in certain countries.  That's obviously not saying that all referees from a certain country are better / worse than others.

[paul_e]

Whether you agree with the law or not it was absolutely 100% a red card. Head on head contact which sees the opponent fail a HIA is exactly what they want to get rid of with the law changes over the last few years.

Ewels fucked up and is experienced enough to know better  I have no sympathy for him and no complaints about the decision.

Where the ref was in the wrong was to not show the same care to Sinckler as he had to Ryan.

I also agree with the comment about the scrum, we were trashing them and their only answer was to collapse it. Collapsing the acrum is also very dangerous and something that is supposed to be stamped out so I'm not sure why he kept just giving pens but not getting out a card.

Final one, I think Henderson was very lucky to not get a yellow for handling on the floor. It was such a blatant bit of cheating that any decent ref would book him purely to set a marker that they wouldn't take that sort of bullshit. I've been given 2 yellows in my life and both were for prety much exactly what he did.

By the current laws of the game, it was 100%, all day long, a red card.  I agree there was no intent and it was harsh, but the thinking is that Ewels was in the wrong position to make the tackle which caused dangerous contact to the head.

The refereeing of rugby is wildly inconsistent, but if Henderson was lucky to avoid yellow, then Itoje was also massively fortunate when he grabbed the arm of the Irish scrum half in a ruck on England's line.  The ref even had his card out, but did a strange u-turn. 

The Henderson and Itoje ones are very different. Itoje was on his feet and the SH lifted the ball slightly and then put it back down, Itoje judged the lift to mean the ball was out and made the tackle, the ref didn't agree and gave the penalty but it could've gone either way (I think the ref got it right but there's enough grey in there to see why Itoje thought he was ok).

Henderson was lying on his back and when Randall went to play the ball he just scooped it away, there's no grey in that he wanted to slow the ball coming out of the ruck and maybe make the ref think there was a little knock-on from Randall, he 100% knew he was taking the piss.

The big one that's come since that I didn't notice during the game is the straight arm high shot by Furlong on Slade. - https://twitter.com/TimWhite40/status/1502707118402592776 - On the same measure as Ewels he should've gone for that, horrible lazy tackle that all the officials seemed to miss. There is maybe some mitigation in that Slade is pretty low but given he doesn't dip into contact I don't think that's much of a defence.

[nigel]

Whether you agree with the law or not it was absolutely 100% a red card. Head on head contact which sees the opponent fail a HIA is exactly what they want to get rid of with the law changes over the last few years.

Ewels fucked up and is experienced enough to know better  I have no sympathy for him and no complaints about the decision.

Where the ref was in the wrong was to not show the same care to Sinckler as he had to Ryan.

I also agree with the comment about the scrum, we were trashing them and their only answer was to collapse it. Collapsing the acrum is also very dangerous and something that is supposed to be stamped out so I'm not sure why he kept just giving pens but not getting out a card.

Final one, I think Henderson was very lucky to not get a yellow for handling on the floor. It was such a blatant bit of cheating that any decent ref would book him purely to set a marker that they wouldn't take that sort of bullshit. I've been given 2 yellows in my life and both were for prety much exactly what he did.

By the current laws of the game, it was 100%, all day long, a red card.  I agree there was no intent and it was harsh, but the thinking is that Ewels was in the wrong position to make the tackle which caused dangerous contact to the head.

The refereeing of rugby is wildly inconsistent, but if Henderson was lucky to avoid yellow, then Itoje was also massively fortunate when he grabbed the arm of the Irish scrum half in a ruck on England's line.  The ref even had his card out, but did a strange u-turn. 

The Henderson and Itoje ones are very different. Itoje was on his feet and the SH lifted the ball slightly and then put it back down, Itoje judged the lift to mean the ball was out and made the tackle, the ref didn't agree and gave the penalty but it could've gone either way (I think the ref got it right but there's enough grey in there to see why Itoje thought he was ok).

Henderson was lying on his back and when Randall went to play the ball he just scooped it away, there's no grey in that he wanted to slow the ball coming out of the ruck and maybe make the ref think there was a little knock-on from Randall, he 100% knew he was taking the piss.

The big one that's come since that I didn't notice during the game is the straight arm high shot by Furlong on Slade. - https://twitter.com/TimWhite40/status/1502707118402592776 - On the same measure as Ewels he should've gone for that, horrible lazy tackle that all the officials seemed to miss. There is maybe some mitigation in that Slade is pretty low but given he doesn't dip into contact I don't think that's much of a defence.

I did notice the straight arm, but thought I must have seen it wrong as nothing  was even looked at

[Dante Lavelli]

Same.  I saw it real time but thought I must’ve imagined it as once they identified the knock on (I think) they disallowed the try and stopped looking at the rest if the play.

[paul_e]

Get in, brilliant performance from Italy. I said last week that I thought they looked like they were going to improve, today is further evidence of it. 5-6 players that I think could be world class.

[Brazilian Villain]

Looked well-deserved from what I saw of the game. Happy for Italy and good for the championship as long as it's not your team that losing to them.

[paul_e]

Looked well-deserved from what I saw of the game. Happy for Italy and good for the championship as long as it's not your team that losing to them.

Wales clearly had the extra bit of quality if the game got loose but Italy did a brilliant job of controlling the tempo and making it a real arm-wrestle of a game and absolutely deserved the win.

[paul_e]

This has been a brilliant display from Wayne Barnes so far, Sexton has been chirping at him all game but he's not let him bother him.

[Brazilian Villain]

Barnes has never seemed to be too keen on the Irish and the feeling's mutual.

[paul_e]

Barnes has never seemed to be too keen on the Irish and the feeling's mutual.

He got all the major calls right today, the scottish try was fine and giving anything against Schoeman for leading with the arm would've been incredibly harsh, in truth Henderson is lucky Schoeman did raise his arms because if he hadn't there'd almost certainly have been head-on-head contact and Henderson would've seen red.

28-5 was harsh on the scots who played their part but just couldn't take their chances, the one Hogg missed in the corner is about as bad a butchering of a chance as you'll ever see.

On Ireland, they did very well taking their chances and, as ever, they're a really tough team to break through. On top of that in Sheehan I think they've found someone a bit special, he was exceptional today and he's basically a 4th back row in the open but then does everything you want from your hooker in the set piece.

[luke:lamf]

Hogg seems to have an enormous ego. I'm not sure he passed once in favour of trying to make a break, and can't remember him making a line break.

Anyway, Le Crunch. If French TV is anything to go by, they are (unsurprisingly) *well up* for this. Best part of a 90 mins build-up on France 2 and Canal Plus, with highlights including Saint-Andre's try in 1991.