Five talking points from Super Rugby Round 5

really....

You and I are wide apart on this one Dave. It is seen as cynical because it is an intentional infringement. Rucking is not an infringement (although there are controls about how it can take place) but a vital cog in the game. I have to admit I get a tad frustrated when people use what happens in one sport as a basis for discounting something in others. I recall a conversation I had with a soccer die hard several years ago. He said that he could never understand why you are not allowed to pass the ball forward in rugby. I said something like ...well you can't pass it forward because ...well the game does not allow it. Then I said but...I could never understand why players, other than the goalies, can't use their hands to play the ball in soccer. Well why not. Yes....the game does not allow it. It's like when I last played Monopoly - why couldn't I move counter clock wise. Well..why not. Would soccer, Aust rules,NFL,basketball be comfortable with not being allowed to pass the ball forward? Well why not? Rugby is after all comfortable with it. Anyway back to the intentional knock on. There are always consequences when changes are made to the laws of the game. I believe if it becomes a non-penalisable infringement to intentionally knock the ball forward it will become a prevalent tactic to do so. It will also spread to other areas of the game other than the tackle. If I'm jumping for a high ball against an opponent...I don't want him to get possession of it so I think I'll just knock it forward - much easier than attempting to catch it. (This tactic is already subtlely used by some) If I'm jumping in the lineout on my opponent's throw - I'll prevent him from catching it by simply knocking it forward - much easier. My opponents are after all not entitled to free passage are they. I'm running towards intercepting a long pass by my opponents - whoops not quite going to make it - so I'll knock it forward instead if I can. "If the defender is in a position to disrupt the flight of the pass then the attacker shouldn’t be entitled to free passage of the ball." - then why does the defender not try to catch it then or even knock it backwards. He knocks it forward because that is the easier option even though he knows it is an infringement.

Hi again, Hello; You're right about the forums! Guys like me who know just the basics find them very instructive for our rugby education and very addictive indeed. In one Argie forum one bloke mentioned a detail that really stroke me out as me being light-years from his level of expertise: he said he saw a player "with his elbows not parallele to the ground" (I think he was referring to a scrum)... how TH could he've noticed it when the tv only shows it for like 1-2 seconds?? I agree about Creevy: it was the very first time I've seen him talk more than 5 words to a referee. Must have been taking English lessons! I personally don't like him at all: a hothead, always getting us in trouble and who's always giving me the impression he neither understands nor can talk in English. Also, in the French forums (I live in France) he's got a reputation like being terribly bad at line-outs, and I tend to believe them. The discussion amongst us Argies is about our team being rather more of a "Pumaguares" (Pumas + Jaguares) and thus having a lil' better chance than clubs; however they also say this Pumaguares wouldn't last much in the European championship. That adds further to my confussion. We are all speculating on how the incoming tour to SA may go; surely a loss against Lions, a possible but not necessarily easy win against the Bulls, and a very dangerous match against the Sharks. Then we will know where we're standing. Can't say much about the referee: true it did cost you a couple of tries; but how fair or unfair your YCs were, I just wish I had the knowledge to give an informed opinion. Perhaps they were unfair after all, a penalty would have been the normal call? I think the referee was +/- balanced overall (some mistakes but not thaaaat many, and mistakes against both teams) and I find than in all of his calls against the Jags he was right (compared to Jacko Pepper from SA in a previous game against the Lions, I could tell Mr. Pepper was indeed somehow being harder on the Jags than on the Lions). I read a couple of articles by Wayne Smith in The Australian with a bit more details about what went wrong in the Reds' performance. He alleges an "apalling display of skills" but the sake of my life I didn't notice at all the Reds failing their passes or making silly mistakes; so it's clearly something that shows my lack of rugby education. He does say the 2xYCs were "farcical" (and perhaps there's a point there). What buggers me is that the rugby press in NZ & SA don't say anything about it, and since they're "neutral" on this game then I can't know how accurate Mr Smith is on that. I'm waiting to read more about it in the English & the Irish press (nothing so far, just a very succint summary in the Daily Mail). While it indeed must hurt, I hope the Reds will put themselves back together again. Maybe a wakeup call? Of the 2 Aussie times still to be played, I reckon the Brumbies seem way more dangerous than the Force, which is one of the possible Aussie candidates to being culled if SR goes from 18 to 15 teams, right? Perhaps they'll beat us squarely in BsAs. Rugby greetings and all the best for you & your family with that hurricane hitting QLD right now! Pleasure exchanging with you.

I don't agree it will become so widespread that it will stymie the game as such. For eg in rugby league, you perhaps see it more often, because it's legal, but I don't see it that it's so often that it's noticeably disruptive. (The games are comparable in this respect because hand passing is the key ball movement method in each game) I also don't see that it's contrary to the spirit of the game to the extent it needs to be outlawed - some describe it as 'cynical' play but I've never understood why. It's considered perfectly fine in rugby to charge down a kick, or counter ruck with the sole aim of disrupting the clearance of the ball. If the defender is in a position to disrupt the flight of the pass then the attacker shouldn't be entitled to free passage of the ball. Other games which revolve around passing, like league, soccer, Aussie rules, NFL and basketball are all very comfortable with it.

I'm pretty hard on this aspect of the game because if they aren't harsh on the clear offences (as I believe this one was just as the Jaguares was in the 2nd half) then the players will simply take advantage of it. And not only will you get intentional knock ons in tackle situations it will quite quickly spread to all areas of the game.

Yes Ruckin Oaf I agree with that but excuse me if I miss your point.

Maroon....buddy..is this a serious conversation or are you simply taking the p...... Now you are producing a still frame of Ezcurra with his right arm near or touching the head of Kerevi and this is absolute proof of a swinging arm connecting directly with the head deserving of a red card and 3 weeks suspension ?? Seriously?? All that pic proves is that his arm was in a certain position at a split second in time - so what. It does not show what the arm was doing before and after that split second or anything else that happened so let's stick to the moving pictures if you don't mind. We could probably produce dozens of pics from that match alone showing a players arm in contact with another players head. What the moving pics show is that as Kerevi falls into the contact, Ezcurra's right arm comes across Kerevi's shoulder and then as Kerevi falls lower the arm comes up and there is incidental contact with the head of Kerevi. Ezcurra in fact holds Kerevi to break his fall to the ground. Nothing more to see here. Let's move on.

It is not uncommon in a game of rugby for the tackler to make contact with the ball. It is also not uncommon for such contact to be deemed unintentional and play to continue with an advantage to the attacking team for the knock on only

CUW - that not really what the stats are saying - expansion to 5 teams occurred in 2011 and for a while there, things were on the improve for the 'diluted' teams for a couple of years. Old Bugger gave some reasons good for why Kiwis have left the rest behind, and they all contribute, but had it not been for the Lions to some degree keeping pace with the Kiwi sides last year, all the cooperation between the different franchises could be seen as a necessity to keep a special herb a secret.

Hi Fabian Thanks for replying. I actually agree with nearly everything you said and in no way can I blame the ref for the reds losing - that is on them and just cause me pain :) I was trying to comment on the game itself rather then how it effected the reds. I thought the Jags got hampered by the ref just as much. He really seemed to try but I am just not sure if the ref was up to the level to control the game smoothly which I think would have suited both teams better. It was interesting to watch Creevy with the ref who I think did a much better job with the ref management then Moore. The Jags absolutely deserved the win and they are looking like real finals contenders this year which will be great to see. I hope they can push on with it and claim a few scalps in SA. Hope you have a good day - and be carful reading to many forums and rugby press info - It becomes addictive :)

Hi Hello. From fan to fan, I feel your pain, I don't rejoice or anything. We agree, the referee made questionable calls both ways. You say "a lot" and I say "some", just for the reason that I don't know very well the rules themselves, so I can't really know whether or not the calls were right or wrong. I'd better shut up then. You argue the back and forth with the TMO killed the flow. That happened a couple of times only, hardly all along the match. As the rugby ignorant that I am, all I can say is this: Aussies teams are intrinsically superior to Argie teams b/c you've been playing top level rugby, right from the start, for +100 years, and against other top level sides. Your superiority shows up clearly in the stats of Oz beating Argentina consistently, despite our best efforts. We have improved a lot, but are still so far from being a threat to you guys. Our occasional wins here & there hasn't changed that. And that, my friend, in my book says it takes away completely your right to complain about the referee and the TMO. Perhaps, the Jaguares players are just way better than the Reds. Why & how, I couldn't tell. It seemed to me both teams had the same talent, force & skills, either player by player or as a whole team. It's very weird, recalling from our horrible campaign in Y2016, that in the Argie forums/fora we were all cursing our own players and/or the coach and/or the staff and/or the UAR; very few amongst us were going about "the referee robbed us on this, and on that". It did exist, of course, but most of our very angry complaints went to such player having butter-hands, or such and such being too much of a failure at lineout, or another being too bad for playing rugby with Jaguares, and so on. I lack the knowledge necessary to point out at the mistakes or shortcomings from your team; but blaming it all, or most of it, on the referee and/or the TMO is... just not worth of the quality & tradition of excellence of the Australian rugby. However wrong the referee and/or the TMO may have been, they didn't make the Reds lose. Even if they hadn't made any mistakes and not "killed the flow", the Reds would still have lost. Surely by a shorter margin. I don't know how good or bad are the Reds within Oz (will read on that later). From my ignorance, perhaps this year the Reds are really in bad shape. But their name is not coming up in the corridor talks about which Aussie team would be culled if Sanzaar goes ahead with shrinking SR from 18 to 15, so they can't be that bad, can they? However, just to have different povs and inform myself better, I'm going to read what the press has to say about this match. So far I've read the Argie and the Saffa press, nobody (except fans) point out to either the referee and/or the TMO influencing the game any the slightest. I'm going to read the French, the English, the Irish, the Australian and the Kiwi press. Perhaps you'll be vindicated, I don't know. I'm going to inform myself better and come back here with what I'll have found out. If you're willing to point me at any journo article on this game, I'd be very thankful. See ya round, in the meantime have a nice day or afternoon! Cheers.

It's certainly a common occurrence and as you say inconsistently reffed. That's why I think that in the case like Nabuli it's a big call to YC it for a one-off offence that (to me and others at least) wasn't even a clear offence - if there is doubt it shouldnt be a YC unless for things like dangerous tackles maybe. Even harder to justify when compared to the repeated shenanigans that front rowers get away with in scrums and backrowers in rucks. Seems like one of those offences where refs feel comfortable being brave becaue it's more often an outside back who's being marched.

Hi Fabien and Nobrain I had better get it out of the way first - I am a reds fan. I thought the reffing in the Jags v Reds game was poor. There seemed to be a lot of questionable calls (both ways)and a lot of going back with the TMO and breaking up the game with both whistle and TMO. No this is just a personal opinion on the ref. I think that the we the game was reffed did effect it because it seemed to stop all flow in the game. He seemed to try to be consistent which is what you want but I just can not bring myself to say he did a good or even a decent job.

Nobrain, reading the complaints posted by many fans here, one cannot but think that maybe the Jaguares should have played the whole game with 12 men only, so the Reds could've had a fair chance ;-p It ain't fair nor game at all to a very good team like the Reds that some of their supporters (and of course that as a fan I understand their pain) whine on the referee. The referee made some mistakes against both teams, but overall his judgment was good.

Ok , the ref here , the ref there, what about the rolling maul that the Jags drove in their third try early in the second half? Any objections to that? May be we should take the maul out of rugby to suit the game to your comfortable level.

Well if you're trying to say that this isn't a swinging arm connecting with the head, then yeah buddy I sure do!!!! http://imgur.com/a/zAZAG

Good on ya Colonel. Los Pumas and Los Jaguares están en una curva ascendente.

Maroon - please..... Do you seriously think I'm going to engage in debates with fellow posters in this forum about these types of incidents without reviewing them myself from the match coverage ....please. Move on buddy...

It's quite a common offence to be fair. Some get away with it - some don't. Example - Jonathon Davies in the recent France-Wales match. Should have been YCd but I don't think he was even penalised.

Well clearly you haven't if you can't see his right arm hit Kerevi directly on the head in the tackle buddy!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nueATx9Qges 1:26:10 Plenty of replays showing it buddy!!!