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The Urban 6 Nations 2018 Thread

I really don't think watching Wales is good for my health, was so stressed and angry after yesterday's game my hands were shaking, almost enough to make me start drinking again!

I don't want to bleat about the refs shocker of a performance so I'll leave it. I just think it's almost impossible for us to compete against Ireland and England if we can't find some big lumps in the front 5. We can debate who should play where in the backs til the cows come home but it's pointless if the pack can't get us the ball. As well I think in hindsight we definitely needed Tips at 7 yesterday to challenge Ireland at the breakdown, may have made it harder for Jackson to be so one eyed, who knows.

I just hope Gats does what he said yesterday and gives some of the newer faces a chance in the last two games. Wales shouldn't have any trouble putting away France and Italy at home.
 
He's
Threshers_Flail said:
I really don't think watching Wales is good for my health, was so stressed and angry after yesterday's game my hands were shaking, almost enough to make me start drinking again!

I don't want to bleat about the refs shocker of a performance so I'll leave it. I just think it's almost impossible for us to compete against Ireland and England if we can't find some big lumps in the front 5. We can debate who should play where in the backs til the cows come home but it's pointless if the pack can't get us the ball. As well I think in hindsight we definitely needed Tips at 7 yesterday to challenge Ireland at the breakdown, may have made it harder for Jackson to be so one eyed, who knows.

I just hope Gats does what he said yesterday and gives some of the newer faces a chance in the last two games. Wales shouldn't have any trouble putting away France and Italy at home.
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i thought when I saw that Jackson was reffing we were fucked him and Gatty being Waikato old boys. Turns out he’s a strong independently ref.:thumbs:;)
 
Threshers_Flail said:
Haha. Don't get me wrong you'd have more than likely won yesterday even if Eddie Butler was reffing, but the shite reffing is really messing with my enjoyment of the game.
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So I'm going to make a case for why they wouldn't.

I'm a bit older these days, a bit more grizzled around the edges and can approach this kind of stuff with a lot more sang froid, so I won't accuse anyone of cheating, of being bent or of being corrupt.

I will, however, state that Jackson came to the game with a set of preconceptions as to the outcome which he merrily reffed in line with for the duration of the match.

The problem with his 'performance' laid entirely with asymmetric interpretation of the laws depending on which side was violating it. Essentially, you were reffed differently if you were wearing red to the way you were reffed if you were wearing green. Wales, who barring AWJ have a powderpuff front five, are reliant on turnovers to generate swift ball against realigning defences and to use superior handling to shift the point of attack and exploit the gaps. If you starve them of the ability to compete for the ball on the floor, they have nothing as they won't be able to win the gainline against more powerful, carrying sides. Ireland knew this and essentially starved us of possession, consistently illegally, throughout the game. The bodies flying in from the side, the sealing off and the taking out of defenders off the ball were constant from 01-80. Essentially, nothing Wales could legally do was ever going to give them the opportunity to compete fairly for the ball and this can be clearly seen from about 30 onwards when we ceased to compete at the ruck at all. There'd be one pillar standing there to stop the pick and drive through the middle and that was it. We'd essentially condeded this most critical aspect of the game (from our POV) as we knew we'd get no change. Meanwhile, the emerald tide carried on doing what the fuck it liked, exemplified perfectly by the astonishing sight of Best taking out not only Biggar, but with him two other defenders to create a gap for Leavy's try. Please rewatch this if you think I'm dining on sour grapes and tell me how the fuck Jackson, who was two yards away, didn't spot this, nor why he didn't go to the TMO for verification, especially given the contact between Best (who cleared the path) and Leavy, which illegal blocking aside, should have been an offside.

All this would be ok, I guess, if the interpretation was consistently applied to both teams. Jackson set out his stall early by pinging us for two entirely justified penalties at the breakdown. That's fine - we'd infringed and therefore the penalty was good. However, for the rest of the game nary a penalty was awarded against Ireland at the breakdown for committing precisely the same offences that we had been correctly pinged for.

Ditto the holding on penalties that we conceded. There was one steal by Leavy which was so blatantly illegal that Jackson must have seen. He didn't release the tackled player and then compounded it by not supporting his weight in the jackal. This wasn't the only example.

So there we are, playing against a pack full of powerful carriers, at home and with its tail up, with carte blanche to do what the fuck it likes at the breakdown. We can't get the ball, we surrender/kick away possession when we do and we get pinged (correctly) for infringements that are forced by our inability to compete on the deck due to the illegality of the opposition. Ireland bang it downfield, maul it, set up phase after phase of one out carrying and we are not allowed to compete for it. They then score a bunch of carbon copy tries. Go figure.

If, however, Jackson had reffed the breakdown fairly, then Ireland would have conceded a load of pens and the result may have been different. Remember, if you will, the opprobrium Barnes got for calling them consistently and exactly correctly two years ago and how it impacted on their ability to execute their gameplan. We won that due to strong refereeing. It's illustrative that up to the Dublin game we'd conceded two penalties (some kind of record) in the preceding two games. We'd conceded that many in the first five minutes against Ireland.

A final point - that last scrum penalty that gave Ireland the three point advantage was fucking baffling. As mentioned at the start, I'm not going to accuse anyone of being bent but that decision is stretching my ability to refrain. It was shocking and, in terms of momentum, decisive.

The positives I'll take is that with absolutely sod all possession we ran in three excellent tries and, but for a poorly weighted pass under pressure at the dog end of the game, could have scored on the death to grab a win that sixteen people on the pitch worked hard to ensure didn't happen.

The negatives - what would we give for a pack with the dog and the carrying that Ireland has. There's boys coming through the system now who, I think, will be quality, but we're about two years away from that and until then we're going to have to dine on thin gruel to get the wins that our rejuvenated backs can score the tries to produce.

I know I'm going to be attacked for whinging for this post but I'm describing what I saw and would be genuinely happy for the Irish posters on here to prove me wrong. Thing is, I don't think they'll be able to.
 
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bendeus said:
So I'm going to make a case for why they wouldn't.

I'm a bit older these days, a bit more grizzled around the edges and can approach this kind of stuff with a lot more sang froid, so I won't accuse anyone of cheating, of being bent or of being corrupt.

I will, however, state that Jackson came to the game with a set of preconceptions as to the outcome which he merrily reffed in line with for the duration of the match.

The problem with his 'performance' laid entirely with asymmetric interpretation of the laws depending on which side was violating it. Essentially, you were reffed differently if you were wearing red to the way you were reffed if you were wearing green. Wales, who barring AWJ have a powderpuff front five, are reliant on turnovers to generate swift ball against realigning defences and to use superior handling to shift the point of attack and exploit the gaps. If you starve them of the ability to compete for the ball on the floor, they have nothing as they won't be able to win the gainline against more powerful, carrying sides. Ireland knew this and essentially starved us of possession, consistently illegally, throughout the game. The bodies flying in from the side, the sealing off and the taking out of defenders off the ball were constant from 01-80. Essentially, nothing Wales could legally do was ever going to give them the opportunity to compete fairly for the ball and this can be clearly seen from about 30 onwards when we ceased to compete at the ruck at all. There'd be one pillar standing there to stop the pick and drive through the middle and that was it. We'd essentially condeded this most critical aspect of the game (from our POV) as we knew we'd get no change. Meanwhile, the emerald tide carried on doing what the fuck it liked, exemplified perfectly by the astonishing sight of Best taking out not only Biggar, but with him two other defenders to create a gap for Leavy's try. Please rewatch this if you think I'm dining on sour grapes and tell me how the fuck Jackson, who was two yards away, didn't spot this, nor why he didn't go to the TMO for verification, especially given the contact between Best (who cleared the path) and Leavy, which illegal blocking aside, should have been an offside.

All this would be ok, I guess, if the interpretation was consistently applied to both teams. Jackson set out his stall early by pinging us for two entirely justified penalties at the breakdown. That's fine - we'd infringed and therefore the penalty was good. However, for the rest of the game nary a penalty was awarded against Ireland at the breakdown for committing precisely the same offences that we had been correctly pinged for.

Ditto the holding on penalties that we conceded. There was one steal by Leavy which was so blatantly illegal that Jackson must have seen. He didn't release the tackled player and then compounded it by not supporting his weight in the jackal. This wasn't the only example.

So there we are, playing against a pack full of powerful carriers, at home and with its tail up, with carte blanche to do what the fuck it likes at the breakdown. We can't get the ball, we surrender/kick away possession when we do and we get pinged (correctly) for infringements that are forced by our inability to compete on the deck due to the illegality of the opposition. Ireland bang it downfield, maul it, set up phase after phase of one out carrying and we are not allowed to compete for it. They then score a bunch of carbon copy tries. Go figure.

If, however, Jackson had reffed the breakdown fairly, then Ireland would have conceded a load of pens and the result may have been different. Remember, if you will, the opprobrium Barnes got for calling them consistently and exactly correctly two years ago and how it impacted on their ability to execute their gameplan. We won that due to strong refereeing. It's illustrative that up to the Dublin game we'd conceded two penalties (some kind of record) in the preceding two games. We'd conceded that many in the first five minutes against Ireland.

A final point - that last scrum penalty that gave Ireland the three point advantage was fucking baffling. As mentioned at the start, I'm not going to accuse anyone of being bent but that decision is stretching my ability to refrain. It was shocking and, in terms of momentum, decisive.

The positives I'll take is that with absolutely sod all possession we ran in three excellent tries and, but for a poorly weighted pass under pressure at the dog end of the game, could have scored on the death to grab a win that sixteen people on the pitch worked hard to ensure didn't happen.

The negatives - what would we give for a pack with the dog and the carrying that Ireland has. There's boys coming through the system now who, I think, will be quality, but we're about two years away from that and until then we're going to have to dine on thin gruel to get the wins that our rejuvenated backs can score the tries to produce.

I know I'm going to be attacked for whinging for this post but I'm describing what I saw and would be genuinely happy for the Irish posters on here to prove me wrong. Thing is, I don't think they'll be able to.
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I dont for one minute pretend to know as much about rugby as someone like yourself clearly does

But I saw this happening and was screaming obstruction at the time.
 
I'll have to read that later bendeus but I doubt anyone on here could disagree with what you have to say, I stopped playing rugby when I was 12 and I miss half of what goes on on the pitch but even I could see a lot of very strange decisions were being made, none in Wales's favour.

But what can we do about it? I've not seen anyone in the media making these points, if at all then it's that Ireland 'played the referee' better than we did.

I think we're hamstrung in Wales by having to rely on WalesOnline and BBC Wales to fight our corner, which they are so obviously unfit to do.
 
I’ve also not seen anyone in the media and even my heavily nationalistic and hardcore rugby fan welsh boss whinging about the reffing except on here. Seemed perfectly fine to me I have to say.
 
Threshers_Flail said:
I'll have to read that later bendeus but I doubt anyone on here could disagree with what you have to say, I stopped playing rugby when I was 12 and I miss half of what goes on on the pitch but even I could see a lot of very strange decisions were being made, none in Wales's favour.

But what can we do about it? I've not seen anyone in the media making these points, if at all then it's that Ireland 'played the referee' better than we did.

I think we're hamstrung in Wales by having to rely on WalesOnline and BBC Wales to fight our corner, which they are so obviously unfit to do.
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Thing is, 'playing the ref' is one thing when he is being consistently inconsistent, e.g. applying an idiosyncratic interpretation of the laws to both sides. It's then up to the teams to adapt to that interpretation.

The problem arises when the ref is inconsistently consistent. Jackson reffed both sides differently. How could Wales have 'played' him when they were being penalised for doing the self same things that Ireland were constantly getting away with?
 
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Reiabuzz said:
I’ve also not seen anyone in the media and even my heavily nationalistic and hardcore rugby fan welsh boss whinging about the reffing except on here. Seemed perfectly fine to me I have to say.
Click to expand...
Fair amount on social media, blogs and other forums. National media and pundits tend for whatever reason to be quite coy about ref baiting.

Jackson's performance was very, very poor whether you spotted it or no.
 
bendeus said:
The problem arises when the ref is inconsistently consistent. Jackson reffed both sides differently. How could Wales have 'played' him when they were being penalised for doing the self same things that Ireland were constantly getting away with?
Click to expand...

They couldn't have, hence us not even competing at the breakdown for the 2nd half. I just don't know what we can do about it, it happens every time a Tier 1 team plays a Tier 2 team, the ref sees the favourites home.
 
I'm trying to not be fatalistic about it as it can and has ruined my enjoyment of the game, and many others aside. I just don't see what can be done if nobody in the coaching set up or the media says anything.
 
Threshers_Flail said:
I'm trying to not be fatalistic about it as it can and has ruined my enjoyment of the game, and many others aside. I just don't see what can be done if nobody in the coaching set up or the media says anything.
Click to expand...
No. There's an omerta around ref performance in the press and among pundits that is notably absent from, say, reporting on football. In a way that's a good thing but on the flip side how can you seek to drive up standards and eliminate unconscious bias if you're not publicly holding their actions to account
 
bendeus said:
So I'm going to make a case for why they wouldn't.

I'm a bit older these days, a bit more grizzled around the edges and can approach this kind of stuff with a lot more sang froid, so I won't accuse anyone of cheating, of being bent or of being corrupt.

I will, however, state that Jackson came to the game with a set of preconceptions as to the outcome which he merrily reffed in line with for the duration of the match.

The problem with his 'performance' laid entirely with asymmetric interpretation of the laws depending on which side was violating it. Essentially, you were reffed differently if you were wearing red to the way you were reffed if you were wearing green. Wales, who barring AWJ have a powderpuff front five, are reliant on turnovers to generate swift ball against realigning defences and to use superior handling to shift the point of attack and exploit the gaps. If you starve them of the ability to compete for the ball on the floor, they have nothing as they won't be able to win the gainline against more powerful, carrying sides. Ireland knew this and essentially starved us of possession, consistently illegally, throughout the game. The bodies flying in from the side, the sealing off and the taking out of defenders off the ball were constant from 01-80. Essentially, nothing Wales could legally do was ever going to give them the opportunity to compete fairly for the ball and this can be clearly seen from about 30 onwards when we ceased to compete at the ruck at all. There'd be one pillar standing there to stop the pick and drive through the middle and that was it. We'd essentially condeded this most critical aspect of the game (from our POV) as we knew we'd get no change. Meanwhile, the emerald tide carried on doing what the fuck it liked, exemplified perfectly by the astonishing sight of Best taking out not only Biggar, but with him two other defenders to create a gap for Leavy's try. Please rewatch this if you think I'm dining on sour grapes and tell me how the fuck Jackson, who was two yards away, didn't spot this, nor why he didn't go to the TMO for verification, especially given the contact between Best (who cleared the path) and Leavy, which illegal blocking aside, should have been an offside.

All this would be ok, I guess, if the interpretation was consistently applied to both teams. Jackson set out his stall early by pinging us for two entirely justified penalties at the breakdown. That's fine - we'd infringed and therefore the penalty was good. However, for the rest of the game nary a penalty was awarded against Ireland at the breakdown for committing precisely the same offences that we had been correctly pinged for.

Ditto the holding on penalties that we conceded. There was one steal by Leavy which was so blatantly illegal that Jackson must have seen. He didn't release the tackled player and then compounded it by not supporting his weight in the jackal. This wasn't the only example.

So there we are, playing against a pack full of powerful carriers, at home and with its tail up, with carte blanche to do what the fuck it likes at the breakdown. We can't get the ball, we surrender/kick away possession when we do and we get pinged (correctly) for infringements that are forced by our inability to compete on the deck due to the illegality of the opposition. Ireland bang it downfield, maul it, set up phase after phase of one out carrying and we are not allowed to compete for it. They then score a bunch of carbon copy tries. Go figure.

If, however, Jackson had reffed the breakdown fairly, then Ireland would have conceded a load of pens and the result may have been different. Remember, if you will, the opprobrium Barnes got for calling them consistently and exactly correctly two years ago and how it impacted on their ability to execute their gameplan. We won that due to strong refereeing. It's illustrative that up to the Dublin game we'd conceded two penalties (some kind of record) in the preceding two games. We'd conceded that many in the first five minutes against Ireland.

A final point - that last scrum penalty that gave Ireland the three point advantage was fucking baffling. As mentioned at the start, I'm not going to accuse anyone of being bent but that decision is stretching my ability to refrain. It was shocking and, in terms of momentum, decisive.

The positives I'll take is that with absolutely sod all possession we ran in three excellent tries and, but for a poorly weighted pass under pressure at the dog end of the game, could have scored on the death to grab a win that sixteen people on the pitch worked hard to ensure didn't happen.

The negatives - what would we give for a pack with the dog and the carrying that Ireland has. There's boys coming through the system now who, I think, will be quality, but we're about two years away from that and until then we're going to have to dine on thin gruel to get the wins that our rejuvenated backs can score the tries to produce.

I know I'm going to be attacked for whinging for this post but I'm describing what I saw and would be genuinely happy for the Irish posters on here to prove me wrong. Thing is, I don't think they'll be able to.
Click to expand...

Raw dick skin.

That's a really good piece. Good work. It seems to me to be an example of the age old problem in rugby that the set of forwards perceived to have the upper hand almost always get the benefit from the ref.

When your 8 shoved Aki to the ground opening up space for your 9 to score the ref should have called it back to scrum for Aki's knock on...he didn't. Annoyingly.
 
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flypanam said:
Raw dick skin.

That's a really good piece. Good work. It seems to me to be an example of the age old problem in rugby that the set of forwards perceived to have the upper hand almost always get the benefit from the ref.

When your 8 shoved Aki to the ground opening up space for your 9 to score the ref should have called it back to scrum for Aki's knock on...he didn't. Annoyingly.
Click to expand...
Yeah, totally agree. When refs review both teams prior to the game they build bias based both on what they see in the context of the selected games plus what is received wisdom with regards to specific perceived strengths of particular sides in a more general sense. At present Ireland are perceived as an incredibly strong breakdown outfit, which automatically gives a weighting to what Jackson will have 'seen' on the pitch. Essentially Ireland winning and securing ball on the deck is what he expects, so on you go. He does not expect this of Wales to the same extent (Navidi's five turnovers so far this competition utterly forgotten) and so 'sees' infringement far more easily. This isn't cheating, it's psychology. Add to that a baying home support and you have a recipe for what transpired. I remember having a very similar conversation after the Wales/SA QF in the world cup. He applied the laws differently to us than he did the Bokke, again at the breakdown, and as a result subtly skewed the entire game by forcing us to cough up possession with promising field position or to surrender penalties in defence. As @thresher's flail mentions, this routinely disadvantages tier 2 nations (including when they play against Wales) and/or the preconceived 'weaker' side.

What to do about it when the ref's interpretation has such a material impact on the game's outcome remains harder to call, though.

WRT the block on Aki - will need to rewatch as I didn't spot. Thought there were a couple of clear knock ons, one in the maul, one by Farrell, which were missed in the build up to two of the Irish tries. Hey ho, though. It's done.
 
bendeus said:
Final word on it from Gwlad with the added benefit of gifs to illustrate the points made. The more I look at especially the Leavy try and the scrum penalty the angrier I become. Reiabuzz - worth a read/watch if you think Jackson had a decent game.

“Play the referee!”

I'll leave it there now ;)
Click to expand...


Thats a great read that-as in informative....not for me as a welsh fan that suffers from high blood pressure.
 
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