Referees announced for semis

bleg

munster vs leinster get nigel owens
cardiff vs tigers get alain rolland

nice to have our pet ref back again. munster's odds shortened again.

Stev_o

bleg wrote: »

munster vs leinster get nigel owens
cardiff vs tigers get alain rolland

nice to have our pet ref back again. munster's odds shortened again.

Owens will be a pain and Rolland will make sure that a English club is not in the final.

bleg

owens is the best non irish ref in the NH

hello_there_jim

correct choices, allin roland is my fave referee!!!!

Stev_o

bleg wrote: »

owens is the best non irish ref in the NH

Owens is one of the worst refs in the world, his ignorance astounds me each time he ref's a match with a French side in it. Doesn't have the basic French words for ruck etc and instead just shouts at them in a dodgy Welsh accent because we all know that will shorten the language gap.

bleg

Stev_o wrote: »

Owens is one of the worst refs in the world, his ignorance astounds me each time he ref's a match with a French side in it. Doesn't have the basic French words for ruck etc and instead just shouts at them in a dodgy Welsh accent because we all know that will shorten the language gap.

i'd say it's more of a case of the french players bending the rules. they know well what they're doing and use the language gap to slow the ball for a second or two. english speaking referees are used for all the france 6 nations matches and heineken cup matches. the french coaches aren't going to allow their players to give away needless penalties due to their lack of english. rather they'll encourage them to live on the edge of the law.

owens and chris white are the best of a bad bunch, berdos was crap in the last munster leinster match, as was barnes last weekend. owens or white were the best two options and i'm glad they gave it to one of them.

Stev_o

bleg wrote: »

i'd say it's more of a case of the french players bending the rules. they know well what they're doing and use the language gap to slow the ball for a second or two. english speaking referees are used for all the france 6 nations matches and heineken cup matches. the french coaches aren't going to allow their players to give away needless penalties due to their lack of english. rather they'll encourage them to live on the edge of the law.

owens and chris white are the best of a bad bunch, berdos was crap in the last munster leinster match, as was barnes last weekend. owens or white were the best two options and i'm glad they gave it to one of them.

Would of preferred Alan Lewis tbh.

DonkeyPokerTour

Stev_o wrote: »

Owens is one of the worst refs in the world, his ignorance astounds me each time he ref's a match with a French side in it. Doesn't have the basic French words for ruck etc and instead just shouts at them in a dodgy Welsh accent because we all know that will shorten the language gap.

I'm sorry but why should he learn the words for ruck etc? Should he also know them in Spanish for when Argentina are playing, or Italian for when Italy are playing.
80% of the top 10 nations in International Rugby (New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, Ireland, England, Wales, Fiji & Scotland) use English as their first language so its up to the other 20% (France and Argentina) to learn what "Ruck", "Hands Away" and "Maul" etc mean.

Stev_o

DonkeyPokerTour wrote: »

I'm sorry but why should he learn the words for ruck etc? Should he also know them in Spanish for when Argentina are playing, or Italian for when Italy are playing.
80% of the top 10 nations in International Rugby (New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, Ireland, England, Wales, Fiji & Scotland) use English as their first language so its up to the other 20% (France and Argentina) to learn what "Ruck", "Hands Away" and "Maul" etc mean.

Would you like if a match between France and Ireland with a French ref was done solely in French?

phog

I think Owens is a good choice of ref for the S/F.

Tim Robbins

phog wrote: »

I think Owens is a good choice of ref for the S/F.

Owens is a quality ref. They all are at that level. I'm surprised fans are so critical.

DonkeyPokerTour

Stev_o wrote: »

Would you like if a match between France and Ireland with a French ref was done solely in French?

I think you have picked up my point wrong. My point is all international matches should be refereed in English, as I said 80% of the Top 10 teams have English as their first language. If English is not your first language you need to learn it, or at least what "Hands Away", "Ruck" etc mean. I can understand matches in the French League being refereed in French but all international matches and international club matches (i.e. Matches between Clubs of Different Country's) should be refereed in English.

That's just my opinion, as for Owens, I think he's a good referee, the second best in the world for me behine Allan Rolland.

Regards
Ian

RuggieBear

Tim Robbins wrote: »

Owens is a quality ref. They all are at that level. I'm surprised fans are so critical.

being a ref Tim you should know that there are no good ref's!:D

bleg

Stev_o wrote: »

Would you like if a match between France and Ireland with a French ref was done solely in French?

would never happen.




all of the players in both squads speak english so owens being unable to converse in french isn't really a relevant point.


lewis is irish so couldn't referee it...

Tim Robbins

RuggieBear wrote: »

being a ref Tim you should know that there are no good ref's!:D

Ha!
I was at the game and I really thought Owens had a cracker. I thought he did a good job with the scrums, his communication and positioning was very good. He also had a very low penalty count, considering the amount of break downs in that game.

I also thought he showed very good speed of judgement for both the sin bins. I missed the first myself completly even though I was sitting 10 yards away.

But the highlight for me was when the fiasco happened bringing Evans back on he communicated exactly what the law was and got on with it.

On the way to the pub I was chatting to another Leinster fan who thought he had a shocker and gave everything against us. He seemed a sound fella and genuine fan so I didn't bother getting into an argument with him.

[Jackass]

bleg wrote: »

munster vs leinster get nigel owens

I have two Heineken Cup final tickets for sale if anyone is interested. Face value.









Might as well flog them now anyway :rolleyes:

[Jackass]

(stolen from Leinsterfans..)

phog

[Jackass] wrote: »

I have two Heineken Cup final tickets for sale if anyone is interested. Face value.









Might as well flog them now anyway :rolleyes:

How foolish you were to buy them in the first place

Aidric

No qualms from me, I think Owens is a good ref.

thomond2006

[Jackass] wrote: »

(stolen from Leinsterfans..)

LOL, certainly a favourite round these parts, is good ol Nighg.

bleg

[Jackass] wrote: »

(stolen from Leinsterfans..)

brilliant!

EdgarAllenPoo

Owens ruins the games he refs by trying to make himself the centre of attention, he's the northern henisphere version of Steve Walsh (except for the hair and the famous girlfriend).

corny

GDM wrote: »

Owens ruins the games he refs by trying to make himself the centre of attention, he's the northern henisphere version of Steve Walsh (except for the hair and the famous girlfriend).

Have you actually ever watched Nigel Owens ref? He's the exact opposite of what you said. He allows players to get away with murder sometimes so that the game might flow. Saw him ref an Ulster game earlier in the season in terrible conditions where he was very lenient with players coming in off their feet because of the bad weather too.

An excellent ref in my opinion, doesn't blindly referee from a book.

Marshy

corny wrote: »

Have you actually ever watched Nigel Owens ref? He's the exact opposite of what you said. He allows players to get away with murder sometimes so that the game might flow. Saw him ref an Ulster game earlier in the season in terrible conditions where he was very lenient with players coming in off their feet because of the bad weather too.

An excellent ref in my opinion, doesn't blindly referee from a book.

Yeah agreed, he refs based on the context of an individual game. Also he isn't slow to sin-bin players for professional fouls etc which is something other referees are seemingly reluctant about.

In relation to the semi I think this just shortens Munster's odds. I can't remember a match they've lost where he's been ref. That said I don't think he's been overly kind to them on decisions.

Crash

No, but he blindly ignores offside. While I had one or two issues with calls he made during the Leinster Quins game (and of course I am, i'm a biased fan in a stand at the end of the ground) I don't contest those - I do however question how he paid ZERO attention to the lack of space between the quins backline and the scrum, and their general offside-edness. Granted we did the same on occasion, but NOWHERE to the level at which they infringed repeatedly. And worse still, were allowed.

Marshy

Offside is something most refs these days seem to turn a blind eye too unless its close to the try-line. I guess there are so many other offences they're looking for.

Was at the Munster v Ospreys match and the Ospreys were offside at pretty much every breakdown in the first half and didn't get penalised once.

Crash

But thats the thing, most of the ones I could notice clearly were in the Leinster 22, with Quins roughly 2 or so meters back off the hind foot. I was amazed that it was let go on for so long.