partisan officials and the big 8

thebaz

I'm usually critical of others lack of support for the Irish team , but how any official could award the Irish try tonight astounds me , why the ref needed to go the video ref was baffling in itself -- but once it went to the video ref , given who was at home , i kind of knew they would get it wrong -- and yet again one of the "lesser" teams is robbed of a deserved victory -- i'm kind of getting sick of this , Fiji, argentina , italy getting robbed , not to mention Japan not getting the World Cup, or the Pumas not getting into the tri nations -- the powers that be seam commited to keeping rugby the preserve of the big 8 --

Stev_o

thebaz wrote:

I'm usually critical of others lack of support for the Irish team , but how any official could award the Irish try tonight astounds me , why the ref needed to go the video ref was baffling in itself -- but once it went to the video ref , given who was at home , i kind of knew they would get it wrong -- and yet again one of the "lesser" teams is robbed of a deserved victory -- i'm kind of getting sick of this , Fiji, argentina , italy getting robbed , not to mention Japan not getting the World Cup, or the Pumas not getting into the tri nations -- the powers that be seam commited to keeping rugby the preserve of the big 8 --

Totally agree bar that they did let Italy get away with a sneaky win over Wales in the 6N :P

But yeah for the sake of the game ref's need to get their act together to some degree. Tony on RTE during the first half said "Im surprised the ref didnt give that [ Murphy's knock on] to Ireland since he has been giving them everything this first half"

Jackz

I though I saw ball goes backwards from ROG's hands forwards from italian's leg and ROG put's his hand on it.

CJhaughey

Ball was grounded before the try line ,ROG loses control of the ball and the next time he touches it it is on the other side of the line.
Seems pretty clearcut to me?

Yip.Im nearly sure it was a try.It was knocked back and the Italian leg brought it forward.Then it was grounded by O Gara.I'll have to wait til it appears on youtube to make sure but I'm nearly 100%

Inquitus

**** luck for the Italians but my viewing of it was scooped / knocked out of ROG's hand and goes backwards, hits italians leg and goes maybe a bit forwards but that is a moot poitn anyways and then is grounded by ROG for a try.

Again better viewing angles may come available.

copacetic

i thought it was a good try and the commentators didn't seem to be able to judge what pushed the ball forward (the italian leg). On the BBC they all thought it was a good try.

Also if the ref was Ireland biased he would have given the push on murphy for the italian try and we wouldn't have been behind to begin with, it was a 50/50 call at best anyway.

Diamondmaker

I dont think it was a try, having said that these things tend to even them selves out over time. This is absolutely no consolation to the Italian try for a possible ( IMO ) triple movement before grounding at end of Italy game

then there was the French try which was as much no score as last nights IMO.

Ireland seem to get drawn into the TMO so often, BODs try vs Oz last RWC , Horgo against England for a 3C!!!!

We got half lost half........But to have got only one of them and to have lost the rest of the calls could have given us a 6N :mad: !

pred racer

Jackz wrote:

I though I saw ball goes backwards from ROG's hands forwards from italian's leg and ROG put's his hand on it.

This is what I saw too. still surprised it was given though! since any loss of control now seems to be a knock on regardless which direction the ball goes.

Back on topic, refs are definately partisan towards the big teams. (remember when we were not a big team and some of the decisions that were given against us!)

daveirl

This post has been deleted.

thebaz

i guess my main gripe , was that the lesser minnow country's , often seam to get restricted by partisan refereeing , and conservative administarion. Rugby is a very difficult sport to break into , and since the rugby world cup , apart from samoa and argentina , and possibly italy , no real countries have made the breakthrough. The other thing that pissed me off, was the amount of time the video ref took to reach a decision , i nearly turned over to Coronation street ! i suppose it wasn't as obvious as some would suggest here

Zzippy

You can see the disputed try here. Looks good to me...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-sgnaeXIzA

Stev_o

One thing i just find strange there was that i never actually heard the TMO tell the ref it was the try now whether that was down to a technical fault i dont know.

Its always going to be debated but when a try is that messy and unsure it shouldnt be given. 8 minutes or so to award a try? That just shows signs that the TMO is completely baffled.

So you can look at it two ways.
1)Ireland's performance didnt justify a win and they were very lucky
2)Italy were robbed.

Amz

I think it was a technical fault, the guys on BBC seemed to hear the TMO telling him, probably through reftalk or whatever, but the ref didn't seem to be able to hear the TMO in his ear piece, so went over the linesman who told him the TMO's decision.

zAbbo

Was it 4, 5 or 8 minutes, it seems to be going up with each repetition.

marco_polo

Stev_o wrote:

Its always going to be debated but when a try is that messy and unsure it shouldnt be given. 8 minutes or so to award a try? That just shows signs that the TMO is completely baffled.

So you can look at it two ways.
1)Ireland's performance didnt justify a win and they were very lucky
2)Italy were robbed.

The TMO is there precisely for when a try is messy, should a good try be not allowed because of how long it migh take to decide? The reason that it took so long on friday was that the TMO would have had to determine a) that the ball was not knocked on and b) that the subsequent grounding was ok, both of these were not visible on the same clip.

Ball went backwards from the tackle, italian knocked it back over the line, O'gara grounded ball, Try. No IRB conspiracy against Italy there.

Also aren't both your ways of looking at it the exact same ?

Downtime

It was a definite try for reasons posted here. It didn't take that long to decide either. When you look at the video on you tube the whole thing is 5 min long with the try coming after 1 minute. It was an important decision and he got it right. Ireland back to 5th in world rankings.

csm

apparently he made the decision pretty quickly but the delay came because there was a technical fault and he had to inform the 4th official via mobile phone who passed it on chinese-whispers style. ("you may award the try. purple monkey dishwasher")

i thought it wasn't a try when i watched it and would have preferred if the italians had got the benefit of the doubt. the win would have given them a boost and wouldn't have mattered a toss to us.

Tim Robbins

csm wrote:

apparently he made the decision pretty quickly but the delay came because there was a technical fault and he had to inform the 4th official via mobile phone who passed it on chinese-whispers style. ("you may award the try. purple monkey dishwasher")

i thought it wasn't a try when i watched it and would have preferred if the italians had got the benefit of the doubt. the win would have given them a boost and wouldn't have mattered a toss to us.

I think the loss would have been better for Ireland. It would have been a serious kick up the *ss and make Eddie cop on that our team is simply to predictable.

thebaz

Tim Robbins wrote:

I think the loss would have been better for Ireland. It would have been a serious kick up the *ss and make Eddie cop on that our team is simply to predictable.

i agree totally , no one likes to lose , but maybe the forwards might realise to win big matches you got to be dynamic , energetic and up for it -- Easterby, Leamy , and most of the other forwards look like they are just going through the motions -- i think Neil Best must start -- to add some energy into a lifeless pack --

Tim Robbins

thebaz wrote:

i agree totally , no one likes to lose , but maybe the forwards might realise to win big matches you got to be dynamic , energetic and up for it -- Easterby, Leamy , and most of the other forwards look like they are just going through the motions -- i think Neil Best must start -- to add some energy into a lifeless pack --

Our rucking was useless on Friday, and the last two times we played the Scots.
Teams know if you slow down Ireland's ruck ball you can destroy them. All you have to do is commit an extra player to the ruck (remember you don't have to mark Stringer when playing Ireland) or else infringe, you are not going to get caught every time.

Sangre

planet-rugby.com thought it was a try and they're usually pretty good about game rules. Didn't see try so don't really have opinion.

I do remember when an Italian player blatently went over the deadball line in the 6N and was given a try. lol.

edit- just watched it there, seems a try.

I also completely disagree loses would be better for us. Momentum and confidence, even from bad matches are vital going into a WC. The players will know they have to be better, along with the whole coaching staff. We never play particularly well against Italy though.

shmaido

It was a try, no question, went backwards by hand, brought forward by foot, downward pressure on ball over line (unless the rules have changed while I wasn't looking), very messy, but still a try. Whether or not they deserved a winning try from that performance...no way.

what the hell is going on with our SCRUM!!! it was like boys against men sometimes, pathetic.

csm wrote:

...who passed it on chinese-whispers style. ("you may award the try. purple monkey dishwasher")

lol. got a few strange looks in the office as I did the ol "passing off a muffled laugh as some sort of cough" routine.

thebaz

as a lover of most team sports , and though soccer refs permanently get a hard time , i think with the odd exception , the standard of refereeing in Rugby union is appalling ! Hopefullly the standard will improve for the World Cup , but i have my doubts , i still think some impartial decisions are given by refs, to up there profile with the powers that be .

Worrytahs

Downtime wrote:

It was a definite try for reasons posted here. It didn't take that long to decide either. When you look at the video on you tube the whole thing is 5 min long with the try coming after 1 minute. It was an important decision and he got it right. Ireland back to 5th in world rankings.

It took five minutes. I know. I was standing there wishing Bevan would just make a bloody decision.
Italy robbed in Ireland for second time running.
They must really love this place.

komodosp

Saw the try BBC (damn DVD recorder didn't record the match!) and while I agreed with them - it was a try alright... But according to them there was a forward pass that lead up to the try... I couldn't really make it out from the angle of the replay