If by “manipulate the facts” you mean “stating a fact clearly and unambiguously” then I fear for your comprehension capabilities.

And in your rebuttal you made an error of fact. New Zealand didn’t have “just one” card before they played Ireland; they had two. One of which was a red.

Just as well that New Zealand “train for yellow cards” because their disciplinary record is by far the worst of the four teams remaining. So far they have earned three yellow cards and a red in this tournament. Compare that to England (one red card) Argentina (two yellows) and South Africa a single yellow.
Incidentally, one of the yellows shown to NZ was by Jaco Peyper, a South African. Luke Pearce from Wales dished out the red and Wayne Barnes the other two.
As for Ireland: desperately disappointing but we’ll be back. We have a particularly fine crop of youngsters coming through. Two under 20 Grand Slams in succession and a runner up spot in the World Cup.
Tiocfaidh ár lá!!!

Come off it Muzzo. EVERYBODY says that about Barnes!

Meant to say in paragraph two “..clearly released the tackled player before trying to pinch the ball”… but I suspect you knowledgeable aficionados might have guessed that.

Actually what O’Mahony really said last year was “You’re a slightly less proficient Richie McCaw!” But when said quickly and in a Cork accent it can sometimes sound rude.

Richie McCaw was a past master at winning those 50-50 calls at the breakdown where the ref has to decide, inter alia, whether the tackler, or defender who is “part of the tackle”, has clearly released the ball before trying to pinch it from the tackled player who is trying to place it.

Whitelock’s tackle and steal in the last play was just such a 50-50 call and it went his way.
Not such a shit Richie McCaw. so.

When they were four points behind with the clock going red? Why would they do that?

Oh please. The bookies odds that I have seen from before the match were:
Ireland 8-11
New Zealand 7-5
Draw 20-1
That’s pretty damn tight. If you had put 10 bucks on New Zealand you’d have won 14. There’s saving plans that offer better returns than that.
It was always going to be tight; it was tight. And at least we don’t have to read those God-Awful patronising “Pluck of the Irish” headlines. Now it’s “The big nasty Europeans were mean to us and we showed ’em” Which is progress, I suppose.
I’m still inconsolable. And I’m taking it VERY personally. It was my old mum’s 91st birthday; she’s the biggest rugby fan in the family and you spoiled it for her!!
Hard to forgive.
ARRIBA ARGENTINA!!!!!
(PS How do you put carriage returns into these comments?)

In fact, here it is 🙂
https://youtu.be/KCd4yDg5kIc?t=1400

Hika Reid was also at the end of a sweeping All Black counter attack in a match against Wales in the early 1980s. A memorable score made even more so by the commentary of the legendary BBC correspondent the late great Bill McLaren calling out “Hika the hooker from Ngongotaha–a commentator’s dream!” You need to hear it in the original Lowlands Scots accent.

He was tough all right. And he didn’t endear himself to the Irish crowd at Lansdowne Road before the Grand Slam decider in 2003, when he deliberately lined his England team up in the wrong spot for the pre-match formalities of anthems and introductions to the Irish president. When he was asked politely by a diminutive and quite elderly official to take up his proper position he rather forcefully told the little man to, er, go away and stood his ground.

It was a piece of boorishness which left a bit of a sour taste, not helped by the fact that England won that Grand Slam match and went on to win the World Cup later that year. Of course the English team and commentariat were fulsome in their praise for his “uncompromising” stance, but for the Irish….well, it’s a bit like appealing for a stumping after a batsman has wandered out of his crease thinking the over has finished. Not really done, old boy.

One could console oneself with the knowledge that England didn’t win a 6 Nations game in Dublin for another 10 years after that, but there was one delicious moment of consolation later that very year when Johnson found himself back in Ireland on more mundane Heineken Cup duty with his club Leicester against Ulster.

No doubt with due regard for his strenuous efforts in captaining both a Grand Slam and World Cup winning team that year, Johnson was left on the bench for that match and was obviously only to be used in extremis. In fact, Leicester got walloped that day with Ulster eventually putting more than 30 points on them. In a bid to restore some respectability to the scoreline, Johnson was brought on late in the game and took to the field just in time to see Leicester concede yet another try.

Accordingly, his first task was to line up behind the goal line to await the conversion attempt. Absolute silence for the kicker is a worthy tradition in Ireland and so one could have heard a pin drop throughout the ground as a loud Ulster voice shouted through the calm: “Are you sure you know where to stand this f***ing time, Martin?”

Oh and just to be pernickity: I thought a “Willie Away” was attributed to the great New Zealand prop Wilson Whineray. I never heard it in reference to McBride. Maybe there’s some really old expert down there who could clear that up for us.
Over to you, Sheek 😛

The most striking size difference in Rugby, I would respectfully suggest, is that between the players of Willie John’s day and today.

The first international season I can remember watching as a young boy was the 1969 Five Nations Championship (as was) in which McBride was a key figure in a creditable Irish team. In fact they won their first three matches that year and then had to travel to Cardiff to take on Wales for their last game.
I have in my possession the front and back cover of that Saturday’s Irish Independent (March 8th 1969) which stands as a fascinating time capsule, giving an insight not just into how the world was in those days but how it was perceived.
My late father, a rugby fanatic, had two divergent careers: first as a journalist with a national newspaper and then as a university academic. Accordingly he was congenitally unable to throw away any written material. Clearing out his “papers” after he died was a mammoth undertaking, not least because many of them, such as this clipping, were so interesting one couldn’t help but pause and browse.

The newspaper cover was a colour supplement devoted to the Big Match. Bear in mind that in 1969, colour photography in daily newspapers was a big deal, only rolled out for Very Special Occasions. The headline suggests just how special: “Ireland seek Fifth Crown” it proclaimed. No mention of a Grand Slam, which a victory would have achieved. In 1969, the ultimate achievement for any one of the four Home Nations was beating the other three in a single season.
Another story on the front page was headlined “Raiders get away with £800”. Even translating into today’s euro currency that would still only amount to a welfare payment for an unemployed man with dependents. Armed robbers literally wouldn’t get out of bed for that amount today but I digress.
The supplement also provided pen pictures of all XV players with their vital statistics. Boy, these guys were SMALL!!
Bear in mind this was an accomplished Irish team, having no fewer than nine men who had been or would become Lions tourists. Included among their ranks were two Lions captains, two coaches and two future team managers.
Cross referencing with a more recent match program reveals that of that worthy XV only three were heavier than Conor Murray, the backup scrum half on today’s Irish team. Only one, Willie John McBride, was taller.
Willie John was 6ft 2.5in, according to the paper and weighed 16st 12 lbs. That’s a height of 1.89m and a weight of 236lbs if you’re American or 107.27kg if you’re from a 21st century country.
Murray is 1.88m (6ft 2in) and weighs 94kg (207lbs or 14st 11lbs)
None of the other 1969 forwards were that height. The other lock, Mick Molloy, was 6ft 1.5in (1.87m) Two of the back row players were just a shade over 6ft and the third was a tiddly 5ft 9in and weighed a mere 13st 3lbs (185lbs or 84kgs)! He would struggle to get on a good school side today.
Remarkably only the two second rows (McBride and Molloy) and the loose head prop (Syd Millar) were heavier than Murray. Think about it: The entire back row, the tight head prop, all the crash ball centres and galloping wingers were smaller, by every measure, than today’s second choice scrum half!
Now granted, Conor Murray is a big unit by the normal standards of a number 9 but could you imagine a tight head prop measuring 6ft (1.83m) and weighing a mere 203lbs (92.3kg) getting on to a championship challenging international team today?
For those with a hankering for nostalgia, the nine Lions on that Irish team of 1969 were Tom Kiernan (a captain and later manager) Mike Gibson, Barry Bresnihan, Roger Young, Syd Millar (Coach and manager), Ken Kennedy, Willie John McBride (captain and manager) Noel Murphy (Coach) and Mick Hipwell.

Not sure how “on topic” this is but there was a hilarious gaffe concerning nicknames made by the lovable old buffer who is currently the President of the United States on his visit to his ancestral homeland, Ireland, this week.

Shouting out to his distant cousin, the former Irish full back Rob Kearney, Joe Biden praised him for his performance in Ireland’s “Great victory over the Black and Tans in Soldier Field, Chicago” a few years back.

Poor old Joe doesn’t know his Black and Tans from his All Blacks. For those without a knowledge of Irish history, one of these groups was a ruthless band of marauders who rampaged around Ireland bringing bloodshed and mayhem wherever they went, uncompromising in their country’s service and with a marked reluctance to take prisoners.

The other was a counter insurgency militia in the 1920s.

Sorry to bump this after four years but I was just reminded of it when I heard the sad news that Charlie Faulkner, the former Pontypool, Wales and Lions prop who’s sages comments are mentioned herein, passed away recently at the age of 81.
His death was announced to the crowd before the start of the Wales England match last weekend.

That’s because we were the first country in Europe, if not the world, to ban smoking indoors in public places eg work, bars, restaurants, even sports stadiums.
We’re more boring, less convivial, but boy can we run!

Very unlikely that Ireland would do that. It has four “natural” teams, namely the four provinces each with their own identity and sense of self.
Leinster, in the East. Based in Dublin, by far the most populous and richest. And unsurprisingly, at the moment anyway, the primary provider of talent to the national team.
Munster, in the South. Based in Limerick and Cork. Very much the second fiddle province and with a MASSIVE chip on its shoulder. Limerick and Cork traditionally hate each other. In Cork, rugby is the posh boys game while in Limerick it’s the game of the working classes. But they can put their own differences aside to take on the fancy dans from Leinster whom they REALLY hate. And the odd touring side, all of whom they have beaten at some stage or another.
Ulster in the North. If it were soccer, it would be a second national side but as its rugby…..
Connacht, in the Wesht. The urchins of the Irish game. Poorest, least populous, and very much a minority sport but with the right coaching and attitude they can play above themselves. Even won the Pro 14 once, when managed by the great Pat Lam.
In fact, in the early days of professionalism the IRFU tried to close Connacht down, at least as a pro side. But The People weren’t having any of that and put a stop to it. Good thing too.
So no. Unlikely to split things up with another team.

Frankly, Spikhaza, on the evidence of this article, I wouldn’t put you in charge of a school pantomime. Because you would have the handsome prince and the comely maiden but you would completely leave out The Villain. What’s the point of a pantomime if you can’t encourage the audience to shout out their concern to the hero or heroine that The Villain “is BEHIND you!!” ?

You just don’t get England. Their purpose is not to BE entertaining; it’s to provide entertainment by being the one team we can all look forward to attempting to defeat. And we have to work at it because they’re big and ugly and expedient and dastardly and they’re not going to let us get the better of them easily. But it makes it all the more enjoyable when we do.

The English know this, and they’re honest about it. They have taken the theme song from their closest counterparts in soccer, the rough and very tough Millwall FC, whose fans love to sing to the tune of Rod Stewart’s Sailing “No one likes us. No one likes us. They all hate us. WE DON’T CARE!!!!”

They don’t. They will stuff the ball up their jumper, grind your faces into the dirt and scrum and ruck time, and choke you like a gorilla in the mauls. They will kick the leather off the ball to find touch in your half (or in your 22, if they’re clever) and then maul the ball from the subsequent lineout over your goal line from anywhere within the 22. If you want to beat them, you have to be smarter and faster because you’re unlikely to be bigger and uglier.

Hence the contrast of styles which often produces the most gripping, the most exhilarating and sometimes the most memorable rugby.

The laws are indeed complicated and it takes a smart man (or woman) with a cool head to ensure they are applied correctly. My second favourite all time comment heard over a ref mike was Wayne Barnes explaining “It’s a law. It’s a stupid law, but it’s still a law” during the match at Wellington.
I can’t actually remember to which stupid law he was referring, but let’s face it……there’s a choice!
I remember the Ireland Italy game when the Georgian referee (correctly if cruelly) reduced the Italian team by another player as a punishment for their needing to resort to uncontested scrums. Nobody in the stadium seemed to know what was going on but World Rugby actually does have an org chart on its website which explains all the permutations regarding removing players from the field in the event of uncontested scrums. The ref was right, but many thought, and think, the law could be looked at again.
Peyper did indeed screw up both with not reducing New Zealand further because of the temporary need for uncontested scrums and with barring the wrong man (it shouldn’t have been Savea) from rejoining the field following the reshuffles after the red-card incident.
I would level some of the blame at the NZ coaching staff for this. They knew damn well they were permanently reduced to 14 men so having 15 on the field was clearly wrong. Maybe they thought the sensory overload of the ref would somehow work in their favour. Boy did that one backfire?
(PS My all-time favourite comment heard over a ref mike was from Roman Poite to a bemused England team a few years ago when they were being bamboozled by the Italians cleverly exploiting the offside law in open play by not actually joining a ruck and thereby being allowed, legally, to run around and pick up the ball from under the England scrum half’s nose.
“What are we supposed to do?” wailed the England players.
“I am the referee, not your coach” replied the Frenchman, with delicious Gallic disdain. )

Stander went back to his farm on the Cape.
So Ireland had to bring on Rob Herring (also S African born) to complete their rainbow.
You got a problem with non-natives playing for a rugby test team? Then write to the management of the All Blacks or the Wallabies and say “Down with this sort of thing!!”
Then you’ll have some credibility.

Oh God! The Worst of the Wokies: English-speaking people who get sniffy about the word soccer.
Actually, it is the English-speaking world in general that uses the word “soccer” to distinguish As-SOC-iation Football from the other codes, because it is the English speaking world that has so many variants of, let’s call it Kick Ball to be generic.
In the USA or Canada, the default meaning of football is American Football.
In Ireland it’s Gaelic Football.
In Australia it’s that variant of bare-knuckle kick boxing called, variously, Aussie Rules, Australian football or just “footie”.
The “rest of the world” that uses the word football to refer exclusively to Association Football is the non English speaking part which calls it Futbol or Futebol (French, Spanish, Portugese) or Fussball (Germany). In Italy it is usually called Calcio, in reference to the medieval form of the game that was played in that country by people in elaborate costumes during major festivals. An example of it is shown in the opening sequence of one of the later James Bond films.
As other Roarers have pointed out the etymology of the word soccer is quintessentially English, and a typical example of the argot of the public school types who first codified the various forms of football in the 19th century. They used the word soccer with the same ease with which their contemporaries called rugby “rugger”.
It is only in the 21st century with the fashion for highly deterministic and judgmental attitudes to language that people feel empowered to become priggish about words they don’t like, or more accurately, words being used in a context they don’t like.
I think they should take their condescending attitudes and stick them up their gender neutral orifice.
Whatever their pronouns.

Green beer? Are you for real? You don’t know us at all.

The best beer is the black stuff. Dark, cold, full of iron and the best in the world of its genre.
You know? Like New Zealand rugby used to be. 😛

That was just on the starting XV. You could add Finlay Bealham (Australian) to that list from the bench and you might also point out that the replacements Rob Herring and Kieron Treadwell don’t have the strongest of Irish accents, having been born and raised in South Africa and England respectively.
But the remaining 16 of the match-day squad were all native varieties.

We will see much fewer “project” players as the IRFU calls those like Aki, Lowe and Park and earlier examples like CJ Stander who were identified as being surplus to requirements in their native lands and recruited, first as squad players to the Irish provincial sides with the carrot of potential, no more than that, graduation to the national side on completion of the three years residency necessary to achieve the alchemy of converting base SH metal into Irish gold.

Now that that period has been pushed out to five years, the IRFU will go back to the tried and trusted practice, common to all Irish international sports, of the “Granny Rule” whereby those with at least one Irish grandparent can declare immediately for the Irish team. Such were the means by which Hansen, Treadwell and Herring were obtained.

If you have a promising young player like, say, a hooker with a name like Sean Fitzpatrick—-keep a firm grip on him. 🙂