My thoughts:
Firstly the red card. Initially my thoughts when Carley went to review it was "really?", but Carley was spot on. The whole aim of World Rugby with this tougher stance is to change how players tackle, making them go into tackles lower to avoid the risk of head contact to the tackled player and to limit the risk to the tackler. Thorley was upright and looking where he was going, making no attempt to go low, which resulted in a clash of heads. The fact that he came off worse is no mitigation at all. His dangerous act put him and Rob at risk and Carley had no option really. Had he been in position to tackle around the waste he'd have avoided injury and the red card. It worries me that the TMO who is meant to be scanning for incidents like this and bringing it to the Ref's attention thought it was fine. I also wonder how many of those who thought it was harsh would have felt that way had it been Rob going off for an HIA.
Our biggest problem was silly penalties and Fekitoa needs to have a good look at himself in this regard. Whatever sparked the scrap with that led to his yellow card I am not sure (although Rob doesn't strike me as the sort of player to act like that without a reason) but Fekitoa deserved his card for the sheer stupidity of what he did. The same with the final penalty that 36 missed. Not what I'd expect from a player of his experience and quality.
Our decision making at the end of the first half was troubling. I get why we went for the try but it felt like a repeat of the Northampton match as soon as Umaga went to kick for touch. That said I felt Carley couldn't really be bothered to police the offside line after warning Gloucester about it or to properly check for grounding and that we were stitched up a bit there as a result.
Lineouts are a worry; it doesn't seem to matter who throws in, they just aren't working at the moment. I'm not convinced Ford-Robinson wasn't wheeling for either scrum penalty.
As for the deliberate knock on, whilst it was clearly BS, we've been pushing our luck for a while with knocking on whilst trying to flick the ball back for a while and it was only a matter of time before we were penalised. That said, I'm not convinced Booj was onside when Umaga kicked so...
Box kicking was atrocious. Porter looks more and more like Warren Fury Mach 2 every time I watch him play. I get why now Vellacott is off Blackett wants to focus on Porter over him, but it feels counter productive to me.
This group of players are capable of playing so much better then they are whether the issue is coaching, disciplinary or lack on desire I'm not sure, but something isn't right and I feel it's something only the players themselves can fix.