Rugby Europe International Championships

Awesomeness

http://www.the42.ie/world-rugby-review-rugby-europe-mess-3942629-Apr2018/

World rugby doing a review into the cluster**** that is the rugby europe championships. What a mess

ScrubsfanChris

At least a rematch should take place according to World Rugby.
That is assuming Spain didn't field any ineligible players in which case they get disquilified, something Romania and Belgium are accused of doing also, then amazingly Germany could qualify for the RWC.

Tis mad

Bridge93

If Germany qualify its as much a farce as the others. They'll lose 200-0 to everyone

.ak

Surely they should just decide based on which fans are the best craic and who'll buy the most tickets?

errlloyd

Bridge93 wrote: »

If Germany qualify its as much a farce as the others. They'll lose 200-0 to everyone

I wonder what would happen if Germany qualified. German rugby is in a mess right now, but at the snap of his fingers HPW could sort it all out again.

connemara man

.ak wrote: »

Surely they should just decide based on which fans are the best craic and who'll buy the most tickets?

so two irish teams

The Lost Sheep

Bridge93 wrote: »

If Germany qualify its as much a farce as the others. They'll lose 200-0 to everyone

they wouldnt lose by that much and it wouldnt be as much a farce

errlloyd wrote: »

I wonder what would happen if Germany qualified. German rugby is in a mess right now, but at the snap of his fingers HPW could sort it all out again.

Im not sure he would. German rugby is a mess because of HPW who wanted constitutional changes to German union for him to continue funding things

.ak

connemara man wrote: »

so two irish teams

Interesting idea.

If we had an Ireland A team in our pool, could they cause an upset, against us?

connemara man

.ak wrote: »

Interesting idea.

If we had an Ireland A team in our pool, could they cause an upset, against us?

Let's just put the wolfhounds into all these competitions and see

prawnsambo

Five of the Spanish players got lengthy bans for attacking the Romanian referee in the now infamous qualification match. Scrum half got the highest ban at 43 weeks, another guy got 36 weeks and the other three got 14 weeks each.

prawnsambo

prawnsambo wrote: »

Five of the Spanish players got lengthy bans for attacking the Romanian referee in the now infamous qualification match. Scrum half got the highest ban at 43 weeks, another guy got 36 weeks and the other three got 14 weeks each.

I don't think that is unreasonable. Their anger being justified or not, they can't lash out at the referee and threaten him on or off the pitch.

c.p.w.g.w

Any officials banned for letting the farce happen

irishbucsfan

c.p.w.g.w wrote: »

Any officials banned for letting the farce happen

Seperate investigation

Dubinusa

Spain were robbed. The rwc was within their grasp and the ref stole it from them. Of course they would go bat**** crazy. The ref needs a ban also as well as the fools that permitted him to officiate the match.

The Lost Sheep

Dubinusa wrote: »

Spain were robbed. The rwc was within their grasp and the ref stole it from them. Of course they would go bat**** crazy. The ref needs a ban also as well as the fools that permitted him to officiate the match.

What Spanish players did was incorrect. They had every right to be aggrieved but not do what they did.

Dubinusa

Right. But I think you would get similar reactions from other sides. We haven't seen refereeing that diabolical in our leagues. We have poor refs, but that was ridiculous. Bear in mind, Spain did ask for an alternate ref. It's wrong how they did react, but I'd lose my nut too if it happened to me.

prawnsambo

Dubinusa wrote: »

Right. But I think you would get similar reactions from other sides. We haven't seen refereeing that diabolical in our leagues. We have poor refs, but that was ridiculous. Bear in mind, Spain did ask for an alternate ref. It's wrong how they did react, but I'd lose my nut too if it happened to me.

I watched the video of the match a couple of times. The ref made a lot of mistakes, but in his defence, the breakdown and even the set-piece were a mess. There were penalties called that I felt were correct, but in all honesty he could have given two or three at each ruck. In either direction. You'd have to almost forensically examine each penalty and I wasn't that bored. My view was that at least half the penalties were correct. But the video was edited to show just the penalties he awarded, so I couldn't get a true picture of the match really.

Galego

Spain played horrible but when they eventually woke up the referee made some odd calls. Not an expert myself in Rugby but the referee should have shown a yellow card when a Belgium lad stopped a Spanish try (a pass)- I guess this is as obvious as a red card in soccer when you are the last defender. Also in the last 5 mins when Spain had all the momentum, and was within touching distance to win, the ref whistled a penalty for Belgium for God knows what. That just killed the game.

It is easy to blame the players for their reactions but they are only human and that was 2 years of hard work being thrown out of the window, Their biggest, and only, chance in a life time to play in a World Cup! These are not professional players like the soccer ones on the tv. And in the defense, there was not aggression to the ref. Buffon the other day was worst and yet to hear any bans......

LeinsterDub

The deduction of 5 points for any match in which a union fielded an ineligible player (40-point deduction for Spain, and a 30-point deduction for both Belgium and Romania). Therefore, based on a re-modelling of the Rugby Europe Championship tables in the context of Rugby World Cup 2019 qualifying, Russia would qualify as Europe 1 into Pool A replacing Romania and Germany will replace Spain in the European play-off against Portugal

World Rugby Regulation 8 stipulates mandatory financial penalties for breaches of £25,000 per ineligible player for a union not represented on the World Rugby Council and £100,000 for a union represented on Council. Therefore, the following financial sanctions will be applied, suspended for a period of five years conditional that no breaches occur during that period:
Belgium: £125,000 GBP (at a rate of £25,000 for a union not on Council x 5 ineligible players)
Spain: £50,000 GBP (at a rate of £25,000 for a union not on Council x 2 ineligible players)
Romania: £100,000 GBP (at a rate of £100,000 for a union on Council x 1 player)

https://www.worldrugby.org/news/334795?utm_source=t.co&utm_medium=referral

:eek::eek:

Rigor Mortis

WOW!
Not often the Ruskies come out the right side of an international sporting arbitration.

sydthebeat

a case of kill em all, let god sort them out

LeinsterDub

sydthebeat wrote: »

a case of kill em all, let god sort them out

The entire situation seems to be a farce. How did WE let 3 teams field ineligible players in multiple games. Why doesn't WR have a database where you can check a player's eligibility?

Squatter

LeinsterDub wrote: »

The entire situation seems to be a farce. How did WE let 3 teams field ineligible players in multiple games. Why doesn't WR have a database where you can check a player's eligibility?

"The Independent disputes committee determined that, although mistakes were made by Rugby Europe and participating unions, they had not acted in bad faith."

I don't know much about Rugby Europe, but if it's the relevant governing body then surely someone in there deserves a good kicking?

VillaMad

LeinsterDub wrote: »

The entire situation seems to be a farce. How did WE let 3 teams field ineligible players in multiple games. Why doesn't WR have a database where you can check a player's eligibility?

Have just read the file about the decisions.

Belgium breached the laws by playing 5 players who qualified through great grandparents. World Rugby's rules is that they would have had to have a parent or grandparent born in the country.

Spain played at least two guys who played for France at U20 level and therefore should have been ruled ineligible.

Romania played a Tongan Sione Faka'osilea who played in a World Sevens tournament for Tonga. When Romania went to select after he played in the Romanian league for a number of years, they asked him had he played for Tonga and he said no. They checked ESPN & Wikipedia to verify and asked Tonga who said he was available to play for Romania.

World Rugby say that it is not up to them to verify the eligibility of the player and it is up to the respective union. They say that if Romania had asked to verify with them his eligibilty, they would have told them that he had featured for Tonga.

Podge_irl

VillaMad wrote: »

Romania played a Tongan Sione Faka'osilea who played in a World Sevens tournament for Tonga. When Romania went to select after he played in the Romanian league for a number of years, they asked him had he played for Tonga and he said no. They checked ESPN & Wikipedia to verify and asked Tonga who said he was available to play for Romania.

World Rugby say that it is not up to them to verify the eligibility of the player and it is up to the respective union. They say that if Romania had asked to verify with them his eligibilty, they would have told them that he had featured for Tonga.

Ok, that is obviously by far the least egregious fault. Do World Rugby allow unions to simply ask them about a player's eligibility? Otherwise why bother going through all the other channels.

Edit: That said, the U20s committing players under certain circumstances is nonsense. That is gone now right?

VillaMad

Podge_irl wrote: »

Ok, that is obviously by far the least egregious fault. Do World Rugby allow unions to simply ask them about a player's eligibility? Otherwise why bother going through all the other channels.

Edit: That said, the U20s committing players under certain circumstances is nonsense. That is gone now right?

For the Romanian issue, they just say that Romania could have queried the selection with World Rugby and that in any case they should have done it more thoroughly. The player himself felt that playing for Tonga at a Sevens tournament didn't count so World Rugby say that Romania did not explain Regulation 8 correctly to the player.

As for the Spanish selection:

World Rugby submitted that the players were not eligible to play for Spain because although they had qualifying family connections with Spain, they had been captured by France by playing for France U20 against Wales U20 in March 2008 (in the case of Mathieu Belie) and for France U20 against Wales U20 in March 2012 (in the case of Bastien Fuster).

Quin_Dub

Podge_irl wrote: »

Ok, that is obviously by far the least egregious fault. Do World Rugby allow unions to simply ask them about a player's eligibility? Otherwise why bother going through all the other channels.

Edit: That said, the U20s committing players under certain circumstances is nonsense. That is gone now right?

It depends..

Basically if you play for a countries A or B team at Adult level in 15's or 7's then you are locked to that country. You can play youth/schools for anyone..

So - If a given country do not have a 'B' snr team, then the next one down is U20's - Which is considered "adult" rugby.

Playing for Ireland/England/Scotland and Italy U20's doesn't lock you to those countries , as they all have 'B' teams (regardless of how infrequently they actually play) but it does for Wales and France as they officially do not have a 'B' team.

Actually, there's a further wrinkle - Games for Wales/France only count against each other as in the case of the 2 Belgian lads.

Because they both don't have B teams it counts as an "Official" 2nd string game - But France vs Ireland for example doesn't because it's not an Official international as Ireland have a B team..

Podge_irl

VillaMad wrote: »

As for the Spanish selection:

Yeah, that is the problem. From what I recall it was literally only a France U20 v Wales U20 match that would tie players as they were the only tier 1 countries to declare their U20 teams the "next representative level". I think that rule is gone now?

On Romania - it is a bit rich of WR to claim that it is not their responsibility to check eligibility of players and then criticise Romania for not checking eligibility of players with them.

Podge_irl

Quin_Dub wrote: »

Playing for Ireland/England/Scotland and Italy U20's doesn't lock you to those countries , as they all have 'B' teams (regardless of how infrequently they actually play) but it does for Wales and France as they officially do not have a 'B' team.

It only locked you down if you played against another "next representative team". You could play for France U20 in 4 of 5 U20 6N matches and not be tied.

Quin_Dub

Podge_irl wrote: »

It only locked you down if you played against another "next representative team". You could play for France U20 in 4 of 5 U20 6N matches and not be tied.

Yes , updated my post