Always a Wasp

Agree. For Penny it should have been 2 weeks for eye contact and 2 weeks for dissent. Richards comments were disgraceful and to be honest I'd be grateful if he was banned from making comments at all. He's always surly, clipped and biased.

Totally agree. All a bit rich from Mr Bloodgate himself.

Foley is much better than CMK and Tempest. Good rapport and relaxed but much more in control and empathetic with the game.

I think the proof is in which refs appear as International officials, and it says a lot that CMK is doing his 100th game and doesn’t feature at International level, whilst the likes of Ridley, Foley etc do. I think the RFU know which refs are the better ones. The fact that CMK was the last resort for the final a couple of years back is a good indication, and he still made a hash of it.

One of the big surprises for me in those figures is how little we’ve had Barnes. That’s really poor given his length of service - he seems to do virtually every Quins game I’ve seen recently to the extent he’s near on their own ref!

I honestly don’t think we get the rub of the green with officials. I’d love to know why or if that’s just me with a false impression, but I do feel we are often the guinea pigs for newbie refs to be trialled.

Hmmm, breaking the salary cap, allegedly, wasn’t their biggest crime IMHO. all that hollering, hooping, backslapping and mocking of opponents when they’ve made a mistake will do more to harm the game than breaking salary caps. 

In 20 years there’ll be a generation of rugby professionals who think that is the way to play winning rugby, and TPTB show no sign of clamping down.  I refuse to watch any of their games except when we play them, and that’s out of loyalty not love of the game.

Totally agree with this. The greatest champions show as much humility in victory as they do in defeat. The EAs players carry on like a bunch of spoilt, leering brats with a sense of entitlement and absolute, utter contempt for their opponents. I won’t forget them mocking Glasgow celebrating a try that was disallowed.

Last season Ben Earl was terrific for Bristol and earned a lot of respect. I’ve seen him twice this year - one against Bristol - and his personality has changed so drastically that he’s become chief leerer and goader of the opposition at scrum time.

What goes on at the EAs to create this kind of mindset? It’s a race to the bottom. I think as much as the cheating its the overall arrogance of the club I can’t abide.

Wasn’t so long ago we were in a final and had our maul cynically brought down when it was moving fast to the line with a couple of minutes to go. The player that brought it down stole the resultant line out penalty when he should have been in the bin and we lost. Defo need consistency!

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Let me start by discussing the red card. Forget what the TMO said by calling "rugby incident". In years before and before the head injury and dementia discussion he would be right, however this is no longer the case. Intent is no longer important, it is outcome.

There was an interesting incident in the Leicester game last night. A player was pushed and that led to a foul play incident. Wayne Barnes went through the procedures and decided that there were mitigating circumstances and reduced it to a yellow. Everyone agreed even that was harsh but it turned out once they start with a red card incident mitigation can only ever reduce it to yellow.

On the incident at hand I thought the ref was faultless in the way he went through the procedure to reach his decision. Lets not forget it was players who asked for this tightening of the rules.

And yet again the incident came from a box kick that set up a chase and smash scenario. Until we rule out something that is so inherently dangerous in the game we’re going to get this happening over and over. It all stems from the Saracens - and now England, Sale and Leicester - game plan of kick, chase and smash with a marauding, very physical (and normally South African) back row. It’s like treating the symptoms and not the illness.

I was also a bit perturbed by the TMO trying to talk Carley out of it and sighing in frustration. Additionally Atkinson on the commentary saying ‘no point asking the TMO if you’re not going to listen to him’ on a later incident. The TMO is there to support the ref, not the other way around.

Quote from: NellyWellyWaspy on March 02, 2020, 11:40:35 AM

What is a little worrying is that the team took about 30 minutes to get in to their groove and alter their plays.

I dont think it's worrying. The sun was extremely bright, low, and right in their faces for the majority of the first half.  Look at Watson getting a ball in the face.  The fact that we still managed to stay well within touching distance when we could hardly see is a great sign that we've turned a corner.

The sun was in their eyes and there was a tricky wind blowing into that corner too.

The big plus is that we dogged out a poor first half and had the courage to gamble on the try on half time which changed momentum, even though a straightforward 3 points were on offer. To play that badly for 40 mins and come away with 10 points at Irish was good.

An even bigger plus is that we worked it out in the second half which hasn’t been a feature recently. Fixed the lineout, won the collisions by attacking the shoulders/gaps and moving the ball quicker to players who were in motion. Once we started to break the gainline and find space we were a different proposition, especially at the breakdown.

Sorry, just a brief invasion, but just a point to make re Dai. That part in a job interview where they ask you what your strength and weaknesses are, and often one of your strengths turns out to be one of your weaknesses too is the conundrum Dai is in I think.

I think his biggest attribute is his loyalty, which we benefited from when he stayed at the club whilst it was on his knees. It also shows a great deal of determination on his part.

Loyalty is the hallmark of a decent person and I think Dai is a thoroughly good man, but it's coming back to haunt him because he's being loyal to personnel in key positions that he likes, but who aren't up to the job or have fallen behind as the game has move on.

I think Dai has been in his position as DoR for too long, but before anyone changes that, I would rather we got rid of Costello first and saw how things went. Mainly because Costello's got no credentials to be a premiership defence coach, had a poor record at Nottingham and wasn't much liked, we fell apart five games in last season which is round about the time his new 'systems' would bed in and we were perfectly ok under Dai until he came along.

The second is Dan Baugh and the strength and conditioning. Our fitness has always been a bit suspect to me - lots of injuries, flat performances, running out of puff towards the season end etc. I think this year we just look tired and jaded. Hughes looked a lot leaner and more mobile watching the Bristol v Bath game, and seeing Ashton on TV last night he looked a different person - super lean a fit. I think in the S&C area we are probably 4 years behind.

We need to change both IMHO before we change Dai, but I can't see that is in Dai's DNA, he's just too loyal and would probably fall on his sword for both of them which is sad but honourable.