France v Ireland 8pm Freeday Feb 2 24 rte two.

Head contact with power and at height is always a card. Willemse had no mitigation. He cost France and perhaps should have been red carded for the 1st offense. What's so difficult for players to get it? The coaches must be losing their minds. Willemse is a decent player with lots of experience, you'd assume after the 1st incident that he'd play with some caution. France cannot complain, it's poor form and technique. They missed Flament in this match and maybe should have started Woki. Woki at least gives them a very good target for line outs.

Watching it back, it's nice to see McCarthy and VDF make absolute scutter of the rucks. Lucu had a tough day, not his fault. Our counter rucking was superb. Danty and Fickou were completely at sea in defense. Very unusual to see them both perform poorly. Our pack dominated and gave us the platform.

You talk about that like it’s an equivalent problem - like there’s a certain amount of brain injuries that should be considered acceptable to avoid spoiling the ‘spectacle’.

I would argue that head contact has clearly reduced over the past few years - there are still incidents obviously (and there almost always will be a certain amount), but there is nowhere near as many as there was about 5 years ago.

If anything - they need to be a bit stricter and more consistent in carding these. Willemse’s first hit was a clear and blatant red card. There should be zero mitigation for Porter dipping slightly in a scenario where Willemse was always illegal (no attempt to wrap).

Crowley was as high off the ground as he needed to be (seeing as he succeeded in getting an hand to it) and had eyes on the ball.

If anything - it’s Mauvaka who is probably most culpable for taking out Fickou. He just clatters into the situation with no attempt to play the ball.

The frustration with the refereeing of the incident is that Dickson sees it in real time and clearly doesn’t deem it foul play and tells the French players multiple times “fair contest”. He then completely reverses the decision purely on Whitehouse’s say so without reviewing. It was a significant moment - the difference was between an Irish lineout 5-10m from the French line or the opposite. He should at a minimum have reviewed it.

His handling of a multitude of incidents was as favourable as possible to the French - he missed both of Willemse’s hits in real time, he gave Atonio the benefit of the doubt for belly flopping but penalised Porter instantly, he gave Ireland free kicks for French scrum indiscretions versus penalising Ireland, he refused to review the Danty deliberate knock on when implored to do so, he made an extremely questionable decision on the field to call Gabrillague’s “try” a try and then ignored when it patently wasn’t.

Those are all significant incidents and would have been decisive if Ireland weren’t so much better. Ireland have a right to expect better.

Couple of things that warmed the heart outside of the match.

McCarthy celebrating with his family. Lovely

And Henderson in the warm up with McCarthy. He couldn’t have been more sincere in his support in the drills.

I know we usually hear this type of stuff but to see the encouragement he was giving him showed the spirit in the group.

Fair play to Henderson.

Was this during Willemses' YC absence or after his 2nd YC, when France would have had to adjust their scrum ?

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For example

Theses graphics provide an authorised & standardised source

Watching back the game, it can’t really be understated how big of an asset Lowe’s left boot is for Ireland. It’s just such a weapon. I taught Lowe was arguably the most influential player on the field in the first 30, he continually pinned France in their own half and secured Ireland territory.

His kick immediately after Crowley's kick was blocked down cost is 40/50m, some of it down to a poor kick and some down to poor defense

Don't remember whether Danty was involved in all scrums. Perhaps France scrum 'long' rather than 'wide' , ie; where flankers are less involved in assisting props. Would need a scrum specialist opinion here.

I definitely remember Danty packing down on the left flank at least once.

Irish fans amaze me. Ireland play a great game away from home, France have a player sent off and Ireland win by 21 points. Yet the ref was incompetent, corrupt, a clown, France's 16th man, a homer. Amazing 😂

If the second French try had been ruled out, I think it should have been a penalty try and YC against JGP. Would have been a better outcome for the French.

I disagree that they've utterly failed. We've seen a reduction in head contacts at the same time as players have become bigger and defenses have become more far more aggressive. Most games I watch have very limited accidental head contact and the players are typically sanctioned for them. If we continued playing and officiating the way we did five years ago we'd have players smashing eachother in the head every ten minutes.

Most teams I watch have clearly worked hard to de-risk head contacts in order to avoid red/yellow cards.

Do we need to get the focus back on reducing dangerous head contact? Definitely, but that doesn't mean there haven't major positive changes from cards.

This whole french director conspiracy theory needs to die. The TMO has 2 or 3 operators sitting beside him who have full access to all cameras and angles and can load up whatever is requested. It was obviously just a miscommunication with the operator. Not some biased French director refusing to show the clip.

On screen tv replays is a different story.

Lowe was magnificent imo

Watched Italy v England earlier today. Italy were unlucky. Busy watching Wales v Scotland. Wales are really diabolical, but hard to pass judgement on Scotland ( played 36 minutes ).