Hansen was outrageously out of order. Questioning the integrity of the officials can not be tolerated at any level. There are other ways to raise issues you may have with how a game is officiated but calling a ref biased during a press conference is not on.
Busby has now retired from reffing. Not the best outcome. He was a competent ref who, like everyone else in the pro game, made errors on some occasions.
He usually wasn't a competent referee to be honest. I'm a Leinster supporter and Hansen was correct in what he said, he didn't deliver it correctly and it shouldn't have been said in a press conference, but what he actually said seemed pretty correct. If that has been the final nail in the decision for Busby to retire it is unfortunate, but I certainly won't miss him refereeing games. Best of luck to him and all that but I won't be shedding any tears he isn't officiating top level rugby.
Speaking of Marler...
I have to applaud his ability to always take the most inflammatory stance possible on things.
If he literally tells it at functions then there should be some good sources.
I'm not attacking you. I'm stating facts. Something you should try some day…..
Safe to say your reputation precedes you
Personally I heard Prendergast from the ref's mic, accuse the ref of making decisions based on crowd noise and he was biased.
There's going to be a nationwide pearl shortage at the rate they are being grasped in here.
There should be no Irish referees reffing games between the Irish provinces.
The issue here was not poor referring, it was the perception/reality of Irish referees being biased (consciously or unconsciously) against Connacht. Busby retiring does nothing to help this, and indeed if other refs feel their mate Buzzer was forced to retire because of comments from Connacht then I can only see that bias moving in one direction.
Good riddance to Busby! Has screwed us a few times at this stage.
We should appeal it for the craic and see if they have the stones to take Six Nations games off him.
All that happens now is that we get assigned weaker referees with less experience. Busby wasn't great but there's a wide selection of mediocre referees in the URC and they're definitely not helped by very poor TMOs in some games.
Mod Edit
Warning issued.
2 year contract extensions for Niall Murray and Sam Illo
Good news on Illo in particular, I thought Tucker might look to take him to Munster.
Hansen was after playing in a tough loss with poor refereeing decisions. He lost the head in a press conference, he didn’t kill anyone.
Johnny Sexton did similar in a game he didn’t even play in and I don’t recall all these condemnations on here. Unless Leinster fans can reference their posts condemning Sexton at that time, they should give it a rest.
Would that not impact on sponsor exposure and thus prove a disadvantage to the Club ?.
If the players are completely behind Hansen, they should have said so.
Connacht and it's individual players chose not to defend the comments made, or to present any data based case to back up Hansen's comments.
'Left swinging in the wind' seems an appropriate phrase in this instance.
A recent injury update had Porch listed as unavailable due to a knee injury until at least mid February so it may not be bad books keeping him out of the team
Plenty of people(including me) condemned Sexton for his actions and he owned up to them, also telling the review board what he said when they actually didn't know.
Trying to say nobody did is totrally incorrect and just trying to brush over the actual incident here.
I think when Connacht start playing better, they’ll find that magically the refs will “screw” them less.
They didn’t get screwed the week after the Leinster game and still managed to lose at home to the Ulster seconds.
Hansen can use the next three weeks to sharpen up, lose a few kilos and think about how he might contribute something positive to Connacht in April.
Niall has played the second most minutes of any lock in the squad this season, and the most in the league. Last season he also played the second most minutes of any lock in the squad.
I think it's a case of all's well that ends well with the Hanson situation. Three games for one player is a small price to pay to make a point that badly needed to be made. That the incident has been the trigger for the utterly useless Busby to quit reffing is bonus territory.
If busby has gone from the pro game it's not a good thing. Do you hope every ref you deem poor goes from the game. At what point does that nonsense stop?
I didn’t say nobody did. I said I don’t recall all the condemnations that we have seen in the last couple of weeks on here about a guy losing his head in a press conference being “outrageously out of order” and so on.
There were a few posts as far as I recall that said three game ban was best Sexton could hope for etc but there was few, if any, posts as strong a condemnation as the number that have been posted about Hansen. If posters did make them I’m sure it won’t take them long looking at their past posts to provide a link.
As for Sexton, he had no choice but to cooperate and hope the punishment didn’t affect World Cup availability, as he wisely did and as succeeded. I’m not trying to be critical of him, he lost the head after a game same as Hansen but at the same time he isn’t worthy of any praise for “owning up to them” as your post seems to suggest.
Josh Murphy. If it wasn't for the suspension he'd probably be on almost double the minutes of the rest. Niall and Darragh are on similar minutes. Joe Joyce would probably have more minutes than both too if he hadn't taken a couple of minor knocks this season.
Not to sure what the Ulster game has to do with my post. Fact of the matter is it was negligent of the officials to ignore the Barrett side entry/contact to head when they punished Connacht for far less.
For this weekend I was thinking it up slightly. So Darragh Murray at full back ( he is a lanky lad) , Joe Joyce in the centre to add a bit of mass and then cailon and Ben Murphy on either side of front row to add a bit of speed from the scrums?
I know that's not terribly radical
So in other words people did condemn Sexton
Crazy and never going happen
Yep, Darragh has played a couple of minutes more. I think id like to see us go with Murphy and Joyce at second row when available, both Murrays' carrying and ruck effectiveness stats are dreadful.
Murphy has played most of his rugby in the back row this season. I can see him playing more at lock for the remainder with Hurley-Langton back, Boyle in form, Prendergast indispensable, and Jansen to provide much needed bench impact.
I'm indeed wrong. I'd forgotten that he'd put in quite a few 80 minute games at six early in the season. Nothing like following Connacht to addle your mind! 🤣
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