General Rugby Discussion 3

Argentina winning 28-27 with two minutes remaining.

Libbok misses!

Still 30 seconds left following an Argentina dropout.

Pumas win!

Brilliant from the Pumas, great atmosphere , love seeing this SA team on the wrong side

Maybe, kind of depends what team turns up. Amazing yesterday but Argentina are wildly inconsistent as well. They have seldom troubled us at the Aviva.

The team who started on saturday, nobody else kicks as far as im aware. Of those who came on from the bench, Jaden Hendrikse has kicked before, but mainly during his u-20 time it seems. He was on the field when Libbok took that kick, but you wouldnt have him kick over Libbok, thats Libbok's job and wasnt the hardest kick. Having a less than part time kicker take the kick over a recognised kicker would severely damage the kicker mentally. But as it turned out having the recognised kicker take this particular kick ended up with the same result anyways.

Maybe Jaden's brother, Jordan, can come do the kicking, he slotted a 59 meter penalty after the final whistle to win the Currie Cup final for the Sharks saturday afternoon, against his former team. He goes between flyhalf, centre and full back, could be a useful addition to the squad and a kicking option.

Aussie get warned of a yellow after multiple offside infringements. NZ get warned after one offside infringement.

Nah, killed them.

@Lost Ormond point taken on threading

This shouldn't be in this thread(too often case on here thesedays... ) could these posts go to a new thread or the general rugby discussion mods?

Problem with training refs in what way? How would you suggest training of officials change?

What of law changes made in past 20 years haven't helped refs and what would you change to help refs make it a better game for all.

So my issue is I don't feel the work behind the scenes is sufficient to improve refs who have deficiencies in their game (and as I stated in my post - they're human. They all have deficiencies in some shape or form)

We see the WRU, SRU and IRFU and probably other unions have high performance ref managers, there is also a URC referee manager. I don't see this as a positive structure that will foster a lot of joined up thinking and working to the same hymn sheet. That's before you even consider World Rugbys refereeing department too.

Using Irish refs as an example. One of them refs a pro game. Both their union manager and the URC will be giving them feedback on that. How do you ensure that messaging is consistent? Back to the human element, corporate egos exist here, it happens in every industry. Clashes and difference of opinion are common. Having worked in high performance for a number of years I can tell you that the some egos in that world are very highly inflated as it is 😂 By one persons metrics a referee might have had a good game where as by another they might have had a bad one.

What we see is the same refs with the same flaws they've had for years. Refs with a bullish demeanour that leads to poor rapport with players, refs who flip flop on decisions. A big one is what I call "zone based refereeing" it's not an uncommon theory in referee analysis. Basically some refs are overly prone to making certain decisions or changing their interpretations based on where play is on the pitch. This is fixable. This is something that can be fed back and worked on. But in so many cases it just isn't

The point I make on World Rugby is that I think they started making changing and focusing in on certain rules of the game without seemingly realising that if you were to implement every rule in the game, the game would not happen. So at times they're arbitrarily going all in on some rules whilst ignoring others. And they'll be very hot on some rules for a few months and then just quietly ignore them again. Look at the crooked scrum feeds, look at the high tackles (there was a brief moment the last decade where head contact regardless of body position of either player was to be penalised), look at the punishment based solely on consequence not action, look at the deliberate knock ons interpretation. There are heaps of examples.