RugbyRebels

I'm a Cantab obvs. So with eye-patch on.

I was driving down the M1 listening to the bbc 5 live commentary on Saturday. It seemed like every time NZ was on attack the commentators were saying the ref had his arm out for an advantage. We see yellow cards (and red occasionally) for daft things like standing on the ground under a bomb that is coming directly to you, only for the opposition to jump through you and therefore fall over. On saturday we didn't even hear a warning for persistent penalties. England had obviously made it part of their game plan to slow down our ball by any means. On a day like Saturday there were not going to be a truck load of try scoring opportunities, but allowing England to commit pen after pen whenever we had front foot ball killed a significant number of our attacks. The try was scored under a penalty advantage but may well have been a phase earlier without the infringement.

England committed 5 or their 7 penalties on defence. NZ committed 2 of their 4 on defence. (See page 17 of match thread on England board for details, thanks to Mellsblue http://www.rugbyrebels.co/board/viewtop ... rt=400#top).

If people want to see more tries scored the refs need to clamp down on teams that willingly give up a penalty every time the oppo get front foot ball.

canta_brian wrote:I'm a Cantab obvs. So with eye-patch on.

I was driving down the M1 listening to the bbc 5 live commentary on Saturday. It seemed like every time NZ was on attack the commentators were saying the ref had his arm out for an advantage. We see yellow cards (and red occasionally) for daft things like standing on the ground under a bomb that is coming directly to you, only for the opposition to jump through you and therefore fall over. On saturday we didn't even hear a warning for persistent penalties. England had obviously made it part of their game plan to slow down our ball by any means. On a day like Saturday there were not going to be a truck load of try scoring opportunities, but allowing England to commit pen after pen whenever we had front foot ball killed a significant number of our attacks. The try was scored under a penalty advantage but may well have been a phase earlier without the infringement.

England committed 5 or their 7 penalties on defence. NZ committed 2 of their 4 on defence. (See page 17 of match thread on England board for details, thanks to Mellsblue http://www.rugbyrebels.co/board/viewtop ... rt=400#top).

If people want to see more tries scored the refs need to clamp down on teams that willingly give up a penalty every time the oppo get front foot ball.

Yellows for persistent offence usually happen for persistent offence within the 22. If the defending team simply concede penalties around the opposition 10 metre line and then later around their 22, it's not really fair to then penalise them further.

Plus, the ref did play rather long advantages. It wasn't like some of the games we've had recently where we've been infringing at almost every ruck!

canta_brian wrote:I'm a Cantab obvs. So with eye-patch on.

I was driving down the M1 listening to the bbc 5 live commentary on Saturday. It seemed like every time NZ was on attack the commentators were saying the ref had his arm out for an advantage. We see yellow cards (and red occasionally) for daft things like standing on the ground under a bomb that is coming directly to you, only for the opposition to jump through you and therefore fall over. On saturday we didn't even hear a warning for persistent penalties. England had obviously made it part of their game plan to slow down our ball by any means. On a day like Saturday there were not going to be a truck load of try scoring opportunities, but allowing England to commit pen after pen whenever we had front foot ball killed a significant number of our attacks. The try was scored under a penalty advantage but may well have been a phase earlier without the infringement.

England committed 5 or their 7 penalties on defence. NZ committed 2 of their 4 on defence. (See page 17 of match thread on England board for details, thanks to Mellsblue http://www.rugbyrebels.co/board/viewtop ... rt=400#top).

If people want to see more tries scored the refs need to clamp down on teams that willingly give up a penalty every time the oppo get front foot ball.

Yeah, I think you got the wrong impression from the radio - this was an unusual game for England in that we weren't giving up persistent offences in defence under pressure - most of those 5 penalties on defence were middle of the field nothing offences that barely affected the game. Heck, the advantage that your try was under was for Ashton being offside in midfield a good 20m away from the ball. If we wanted to be one-eyed, one could argue that a clearer yellow card and penalty try option was when we had the second lineout drive on your line, were marching over and then it got pulled down.

Your point is generally valid, even if your example isn't. Although if I were to give an instruction to refs, it would be for them to have more balls about handing put a straight yellow for cynical play killing a break. Too many will just give a penalty as it's early on or they don't want to affect the game, ignoring that a try-scoring chance has just been destroyed. Itoje's yellow against South Africa is an example - it was given as repeated offences (which he deserved as well), but it should've been a straight yellow on its own merits.

Puja

How many penalties against NZ so far?

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Of course, the answer to the question is "as many as it takes before a yellow card offence occurs"

I think that Barnes giving the warning he did last night shows how this should be handled. NZ were pretty blatant in their offending and were rightly told it would lead to a card. At that point the penalties were either stopped, or stopped being called. Hoping it was the former in the eyes of all.

canta_brian wrote:I think that Barnes giving the warning he did last night shows how this should be handled. NZ were pretty blatant in their offending and were rightly told it would lead to a card. At that point the penalties were either stopped, or stopped being called. Hoping it was the former in the eyes of all.

At that point it had been 8 penalties, including several in a string in your 22 (some of which would have been counted within that 8 because there was an advantage and you went on to commit at least one more. If that is how you think it should be handled, I'm surprised you asked the question you did.

Eugene Wrayburn wrote:

canta_brian wrote:I think that Barnes giving the warning he did last night shows how this should be handled. NZ were pretty blatant in their offending and were rightly told it would lead to a card. At that point the penalties were either stopped, or stopped being called. Hoping it was the former in the eyes of all.

At that point it had been 8 penalties, including several in a string in your 22 (some of which would have been counted within that 8 because there was an advantage and you went on to commit at least one more. If that is how you think it should be handled, I'm surprised you asked the question you did.

I think it is perfectly possible to argue that the warning should have come 2 or 3 earlier in the piece. I wouldn’t have an issue with that. I also would have complained had Barnes gone straight to a card at 8 or even 5 as it was pretty much every Irish attack. I prefer 15 v 15 so do like a warning. NZ did comply I think so the warning worked.

canta_brian wrote:

Eugene Wrayburn wrote:

canta_brian wrote:I think that Barnes giving the warning he did last night shows how this should be handled. NZ were pretty blatant in their offending and were rightly told it would lead to a card. At that point the penalties were either stopped, or stopped being called. Hoping it was the former in the eyes of all.

At that point it had been 8 penalties, including several in a string in your 22 (some of which would have been counted within that 8 because there was an advantage and you went on to commit at least one more. If that is how you think it should be handled, I'm surprised you asked the question you did.

I think it is perfectly possible to argue that the warning should have come 2 or 3 earlier in the piece. I wouldn’t have an issue with that. I also would have complained had Barnes gone straight to a card at 8 or even 5 as it was pretty much every Irish attack. I prefer 15 v 15 so do like a warning. NZ did comply I think so the warning worked.

Seems to me that the fact that a team then stops committing a series of penalties, having given away a penalty pretty much every attack shows the error of a referee giving them so many chances and a warning. If they know they are going to get a warning before any card then a team will commit potentially game changing penalties with impunity. I get that playing to the referee is part of the game but to me it's still crappy refereeing.

I think the egregious one was the 8th that came just before the warning - Ireland were on the attack, Barnes called penalty advantage for offside (I think), Ireland got a good attack going and Retallick basically looked at the ruck and went, "Well, they've already got advantage," and threw himself over the ball like he was covering a live grenade. That should've been a straight yellow just for cynical play, let alone the repeated infringing.

Puja