Rugby World Cup 2015

inter tatters

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The less said about Sunday the better - suffice to say I've never been so heartbroken in my life and then when you find out it was the wrong call, which we all suspected at the time, well, I screamed a lot of things in front of my son I never should have!
 
Anyway, with Barnes reffing the Australia-Argentina game, you've got to favour the Pumas, right? Barnes is notorious for his odd "interpretations" of the ruck, but he's one of the best at scrum time and you've got to think that, if WP Nel could screw Sio over on Sunday, Ayerza, who is one of, if not the, best props in the world, is going to destroy him and in Sanchez they have a kicker who'll slot everything on offer. It should be a fantastic match either way, as the Argentinian back line is just incredible to watch and with Bosch back to take on Kuridrani, it should be a titanic clash in the centres. However, I just have a suspicion the Pumas pack might be the difference with Barnes reffing. Personally speaking, boy do I want the Pumas to win to wipe the knowing, smug look off all the Aussies I've met these past few days though!
 
Can't see anything but an All Blacks win in the other game, unless they choke under the expectations. The Boks have got to keep it tight and try to smash through the ABs, but I can't see them keeping the ball away from them enough and all it takes is one moment of magic, or brute strength, and the ABs will be away.
 

BrazilianSoxFan

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A friend will be in London the day of the finals and is looking for a place to watch the game with his wife. Can you guys recommend a place near the Regent's Park?
 

Spacemans Bong

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I would go to the Fanzone in Richmond if I were him, at least in terms of wanting to soak in all the experience. With all the Home Nations out I fear London's going to look seriously disinterested.
 
They might re-open the Tralfalgar Square fanzone - not sure but that's also an option if he wants to be more central.
 

Lowrielicious

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inter tatters said:
The less said about Sunday the better - suffice to say I've never been so heartbroken in my life and then when you find out it was the wrong call, which we all suspected at the time, well, I screamed a lot of things in front of my son I never should have!
 
No wanting to be a dick about it, as it was clearly not a penalty/offside on replay, but Joubert missed plenty prior to that also.
 
Wallabies likely didn't knock on from the restart after Scotlands last try (and were in good field position with possession when he blew the whistle for that).
Could have easily blown a penalty for the Wallabies at both scrums from that knock on call but ruled a reset for the first, then inexplicably a penalty in Scotlands favor for the second.
 
Besides all that, even without the offside penalty it's not like the game was over. The Wallabies still have possession for the knock on. Scrum just outside Scotlands 22 with 2 minutes to play. With the Scotts not able to afford giving away a penalty that is prime position for a field goal or a try.
 

inter tatters

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Lowrielicious said:
Lowrielicious, on 22 Oct 2015 - 12:28 AM, said:Lowrielicious, on 22 Oct 2015 - 12:28 AM, said:Lowrielicious, on 22 Oct 2015 - 12:28 AM, said:

No wanting to be a dick about it, as it was clearly not a penalty/offside on replay, but Joubert missed plenty prior to that also.
 
Wallabies likely didn't knock on from the restart after Scotlands last try (and were in good field position with possession when he blew the whistle for that).
Could have easily blown a penalty for the Wallabies at both scrums from that knock on call but ruled a reset for the first, then inexplicably a penalty in Scotlands favor for the second.
 
Besides all that, even without the offside penalty it's not like the game was over. The Wallabies still have possession for the knock on. Scrum just outside Scotlands 22 with 2 minutes to play. With the Scotts not able to afford giving away a penalty that is prime position for a field goal or a try.
 
This has been said many times on social media and I'll give the same answer I've given every time...
 
Not that it matters now, but wouldn't it have been better if it had played out that way, rather than the unsatisfactory way it did? Whatever you think of Joubert's reffing of the scrum, Scotland had been doing very well at scrum time and had won 3 penalties in that area, so what's to say that wouldn't happen again? Yes, they would have been scared of conceding, but you're more likely to concede if you don't at least try to compete. Plus, if they get a little bit of a shove on, they've got the scrum-half/number 8 under a bit of pressure and maybe they knock it on? Australia may well have got the ball back successfully, kicked a drop/field goal and won the game anyway, but I'd have far rather have that, than the shit storm we've been left with.
 
In the end, none of it matters, as the decision is final. The one thing I would say, however, is if you can see the final acts of the game, watch Joubert. When he gives the penalty, he looks up at the big screen and, I and most commentators, reckon, sees the touch by the Australian and realises he's made a mistake. If that had been Nigel Owens, I can almost guarantee, he'd have said "bugger the protocol, I want the TMO to have a look at this", but instead Joubert left the decision to stand, then ran off the field. Which is the worst thing he could have done, as that gives the impression of something shady. Why did he do that? Until we have an answer to why he ran, and please don't give me the "stuff thrown at him/he needed the toilet" lines, it will always leave an unsatisfactory taste in the mouth.
 
The Owens/TMO analogy is the difference between the very best refs and the merely very good ones, the latter of which Joubert clearly is or he never would have made it to the heights he has. He was once the best referee in the world, but then let Richie McCaw run the 2011 WC Final (just listen to the Refs mic in that game, it's quite frankly embarrassing) and was never the same. 
 
Finally, if the Referee is the "Sole Arbiter of the Game", as is enshrined in the Rugby Laws, then they should be able to call on any assistance/technology available to them at any point and, conversely, shouldn't have the TMO chirping in their ears offering "advice" - Glenn Jackson and the yellow card being a prime example of that. As I said, Nigel Owens would have done and told the Rugby suits to bollock him later, at least he'd have got the decision right. However, as the Ref is the Sole Arbiter, the decision is his alone, Joubert made it and we must all stand by it no matter how much it hurts. Simple as that.
 

Lowrielicious

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inter tatters said:
 
This has been said many times on social media and I'll give the same answer I've given every time...
 
Not that it matters now, but wouldn't it have been better if it had played out that way, rather than the unsatisfactory way it did?
 
Totally agree it would have been better for everyone if it had played out without a bad call. It's the worst way to lose any game let alone a knockout RWC match.
 
But with a bad ref you take the good with the bad, and that play has been replayed and found to be wrong because it was the last play of the game (and understandably so), but the game only came to that point off the back of more than one pretty dubious decisions going Scotlands way in the buildup.
Should Joubert have gone upstairs to check the apparent knock-on from the kickoff? I haven't seen anyone suggest that and yet that is a bad call that could easily have effected the outcome of the game just as much. Was it a knock-on...well we don't know for sure as it hasn't been replayed a million times in slo-mo because the game went on and it wasn't the last play of the game.
 
Scotland definitely did enough to win the game and probably should have, but the focus on the bad call takes the focus away from their poor control of possession and territory after taking the lead. Not to mention the fact that the last try was a brain explosion gift from the Wallabies and Foleys poor goal kicking keeping them in the game.
 

inter tatters

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Lowrielicious said:
Lowrielicious, on 22 Oct 2015 - 11:19 PM, said:

 
Totally agree it would have been better for everyone if it had played out without a bad call. It's the worst way to lose any game let alone a knockout RWC match.
 
But with a bad ref you take the good with the bad, and that play has been replayed and found to be wrong because it was the last play of the game (and understandably so), but the game only came to that point off the back of more than one pretty dubious decisions going Scotlands way in the buildup.
Should Joubert have gone upstairs to check the apparent knock-on from the kickoff? I haven't seen anyone suggest that and yet that is a bad call that could easily have effected the outcome of the game just as much. Was it a knock-on...well we don't know for sure as it hasn't been replayed a million times in slo-mo because the game went on and it wasn't the last play of the game.
 
Scotland definitely did enough to win the game and probably should have, but the focus on the bad call takes the focus away from their poor control of possession and territory after taking the lead. Not to mention the fact that the last try was a brain explosion gift from the Wallabies and Foleys poor goal kicking keeping them in the game.
I absolutely agree with all of that. Scotland were lucky at times, but the Australian brain explosions came from pressure, which is the idea I guess.
 
The point I'm trying to make is that, if the Ref is the Sole Arbiter of the game, as enshrined as the first Law of the game, then you must give him full control of the game. Either you allow him to have full access to the TMO at any time he chooses, or you do away with it completely and go back to the archaic days of the opposition being allowed to "cite" whoever they felt like after the game. There cannot be this halfway house, where some things can be reviewed and others can't. Some will complain that if the Ref can go to the TMO for whatever he wants, matches will last for hours, but with TV being able to get up close and the repercussions of that being so glaring if the Ref gets it wrong, surely that has to be the way to go?
 
My other issue is that the TMO is able to chirp in the Ref's ear whenever he sees something he doesn't like. For example, the yellow card last Sunday. Joubert, as were most people, was sure there was, at least, an attempt to intercept the pass by Maitland. However, Glenn Jackson - who BTW, has had the fastest transition from club player to International Ref in history at only 4 years - somehow managed to convince Joubert that Maitland had deliberately knocked it on to stop an Australian overlap, which was complete and utter crap. As an ex-player, surely Jackson would know the instinct players would have to at least try to get a hand on it. Maybe it sticks and you run the length of the field? Anyway, the whole game was just a bizarre set of circumstances that show the inconsistencies of the review system and the need to clarify the rules further.
 
Simply, if you want to uphold your own Number 1 Law, give the guy in the middle the tools to do his job and don't let other outside interfere in that.
 

pockmeister

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Just for the record, the TMO in the Scotland v Australia game was Ben Skeen from NZ, not Glenn Jackson.  There are only 4 TMOs to cover the tournament, and none of them are on-field refs.
 
http://www.rugbyworldcup.com/news/65914
 
I don't know a great deal about Skeen's playing background, but he's a school teacher in his non-reffing life.
 
https://www.ags.school.nz/our-community/news-and-messages/show/8002
 
Agree that Jackson has limitations as a ref, but it's not right to blame him for this one.  The Maitland yellow was a very poor decision all round.  Perhaps I'm in the minority, but I think the wider use of TMO has led to better reffing at the RWC as a whole, and would gladly see it extended to enable the on-field ref to refer any decision he wants (as per Inter Tatters above), and to enable the TMO to more actively review things as the game is in play.  Seems to lead to stronger decision-making as a whole, and the issue with the incorrect penalty that decided the Scotland game would have been resolved with a TMO referral.  
 
The sticking point right now is the quality of the TMO.  If they're going to have an active TMO, they need to be to the same standard of reffing quality as the bloke in the middle - hence the TMO should also be a top flight international ref.  Perhaps part of the development of refs should include learning how to fulfill the TMO role, rather than separating the roles out as currently happens.  There would also be prime comedy value in Nigel Owens being a TMO sometimes, and giving his lectures from the booth.
 

Spacemans Bong

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So, we've got the dream final - World Cup finals between the two best teams in rugby are fairly rare. 1995 (NZ-SA) and 2003 (Oz-Eng) are the only finals that would have qualified for that distinction.
 
NZ played a terrifically tight, nervy semi versus the Springboks, and for a while in the first half, looked like they might be going home. Garces was hot on their antics at the ruck and they couldn't stop giving up penalties for Handre Pollard to slot over. Kaino's yellow card was an unexpectedly clumsy piece of bad discipline. But Carter's genius dropgoal steadied the ship, and I think it became increasingly clear that the Springboks just couldn't offer anything in attack. For a Southern Hemisphere team with two World Cups under their belt, they conform more than any other to the Northern Hemisphere type of bash-it-up rugby, and in their current setup, they lack the really classy, ghosting centre that could break a game open for them. Damian de Allende might be this person eventually, but he's not a Kurtley Beale, or Conrad Smith.
 
Argentina looked a handful, but their willingness to chuck the ball around cost them early - that Will Simmons interception...there was no risk there. They weren't getting anywhere even if Sanchez makes that pass and all Simmons had to do was come up in the line. Argentina kept it close because Sanchez bought his kicking boots and Foley didn't, but between Wayne Barnes fucking up over and over (how was that a yellow card? thanks for gifting Oz their second try, Wayne) and Australia just plain being better you could only see one winner. Adam Ashley-Cooper, possessor of the best nickname in sports in Two Dads, got a hat-trick and there she goes. I loved this Argentina team, though. Great scrum - really turned the screws on the Wallabies there - and all this expansive rugby...their skills aren't quite top-level yet but fuck me, they know how to make a line break.
 
My interest in rugby has faded a bit here and there, but this has reminded me that to maintain my interest, I need to watch more Southern Hemisphere rugby. NH rugby is such a dirge compared to the Rugby Championship nations.
 

Spacemans Bong

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So, that All Black team is pretty good, eh?

But this is the big news:

US pro league to start in April 2016

Teams in the Rocky Mountains, Pacific Coast and North East. Six of 'em. So I'm going to guess that it'll be the Boston SoSHers vs. NY Toilets vs. Bay Area Bongeurs vs. LA Nose Jobs vs. Denver USA Rugby Is Based In Colorados vs. either Philly or Seattle.

More news to come. It's still early days and I am petrified a lot could go wrong, but this seems to be easily the most credible attempt at a pro league the US has ever seen. Which means the stakes are highest. Fail and we might be looking at 0-4s in the World Cup (unless we get Uruguay or Russia in our group) for decades to come.
 

HoyaSoxa

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RIP Jonah Lomu, the first rugby player I ever heard of, dead at 40 after more than a decade of struggling with kidney disease, although he seemed to be managing reasonably well of late. To me, he seemed like rugby's version of Bo Jackson, simply a different class of athlete than the rest of the competition, a breathtaking combination of speed and power who had several iconic moments and yet also had a career cut short.
 

SoxJox

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Didn't want to start a whole new thread for this, but saw the following on Deadspin. Tonga vs. Somoa in the Rugby League WorldCup. Can you imagine the NFL doing something like this?

This is great:

 

SoxJox

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You are absolutely right. I haven't a clue about most all things rugby. But I didn't want to start a new thread on it, and I thought it was hilarious. Apologies if senses have been offended.
 

HoyaSoxa

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Setting aside the misbegotten reference to some other sport I don't recognize, I was pretty excited to learn that NBC Sports has acquired the US rights to the 6 Nations for this year. What is unclear is how many live matches will be showing on the cable channels vs. their add-on subscription service, but even that service is substantially less expensive ($60) than what I recall paying for the full tournament package last year. That service also claims to include all (Rugby) Premiership matches, but I don't really have a strong interest in English clubs so not much value added for me. I am hoping this type of pricing will also carry over to the 2019 World Cup, as well as showing more matches on live cable - given the time difference in Japan they won't have much competition at those hours.

Edit to add: ESPN3/WatchESPN has had a good number of the Fall Internationals available - all 3 Ireland matches have been or will be broadcast, and those come free so long as you are a cable subscriber.
 
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fiskful of dollars

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I was working in the ED 2 days ago and had a pt who had recently returned from somewhere cool in the Southern hemisphere but possibly endemic for malaria, zika, dengue fever, etc. He was a young, vigorous, very fit young guy. But he has some concerning symptoms. As I was taking his history, I asked what he was doing in this hypothetical country. He said he was playing rugby for the US. My eyes lit up. I pulled up a chair and began talking excitedly about rugby, the Eagles, my love and 20+ year history playing, coaching, etc. We covered the basics of his ED visit and we started talking about rugby again. I mentioned 2 of my former teammates who were Eagles and he replied..."Oh, I play League, not Union."
I just shook my head and discharged him home. I mean seriously, fuck that shit.
True story.
 

SydneySox

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I was working in the ED 2 days ago and had a pt who had recently returned from somewhere cool in the Southern hemisphere but possibly endemic for malaria, zika, dengue fever, etc. He was a young, vigorous, very fit young guy. But he has some concerning symptoms. As I was taking his history, I asked what he was doing in this hypothetical country. He said he was playing rugby for the US. My eyes lit up. I pulled up a chair and began talking excitedly about rugby, the Eagles, my love and 20+ year history playing, coaching, etc. We covered the basics of his ED visit and we started talking about rugby again. I mentioned 2 of my former teammates who were Eagles and he replied..."Oh, I play League, not Union."
I just shook my head and discharged him home. I mean seriously, fuck that shit.
True story.
Papua New Guinea - I watched some of that game. You could tell most of the guys on the US team had 'grown up' playing the effete version of the game; they tried hard but they couldn't tackle and got absolutely smashed in every hit up. They tried very hard, so good luck to them.