Absolute shoking decision to send him off, becoming more like football even saw a French player take a dive following a kick. Cant blame the French but they are shocking. : ???
I have to agree with the sending off, could have easily broken the guy's neck tipping him up like that and then dumping him on the ground upside down. It's not about making rugby soft, it's about trying to remove the type of incident that leads to people spending the rest of their lives in a wheelchair. Everyone knows the rules, if you get caught then man up and take the punishment.
Agreed he could have hurt Vincent Clerc badly, but he didn't. The ref has to rule the game as he sees fit, but as with any rules the arbiter has discretion. Just becuse a rule has been infringed you don't have to impose the most severe sanction. If you were driving 31mph in a 30 zone you might expect your kindly traffic cop to use a bit of discretion and just have a word with you although you have broken the law, and speed kills and all that. A quick word in the offenders ear would have done. It mightn't have have made a difference, and if anything Wales played better after the sending off.
Unfortunately it appears to be the Welsh turn to suffer the wrath of Alain, sadly he's a fellow countryman so I lower my head. But the conspiracy theorists will have loads to go at... But saying that, intepret the laws correctly and make the decision thats what he's there for. I thought it was a good game but Wales lacked the killer blow in the form of at least one kicker on form. I'll be watching them again in 4yrs Oh and as for ITV, they are shi'ite at covering any sport, so take what the commentators say with a pinch of salt. scooper - you have my sympathies fella
Should be a good game Wales against Australia in the play offs. New Zealand will embarrass France for sure.
Ah, congrats to the pair of you. Winning hearts and minds for your game by p1ssing people off who love their own game, and have no opinion on league other than liking it us the way to go. This is a sore subject tonight so I'll bow out of the 'hilarious' bating. Yeah, you got me good. Well done.
This is what annoys me: http://www.foxsports.com.au/league/wests-tigers-coach-tim-sheens-worried-benji-marshall-could-be-lost-to-rugby-after-current-contract/story-e6frf3ou-1226167679478 Tim Sheerns coaches a side in thge national Rugby league, Marshall plays in the national Rugby league yet Sheens talks about rugby as though is nothing to do with him. Here's a clue, NRL means national Rugby league, you coach a rugby team, Marshall is a rugby player. Maybe Marshall will go to union but he will be wasted there, the union heroes, Wilkinson, Carter etc are kickers. The try scorers who become heroes (Robinson, Campese, Sella, Lomu etc) all had rugby league backgrounds - every try scored in a IRB Rugby World Cup final this millennium was scored by somebody who grew up playing rugby league. In rugby league you have to win the game, you can't sit back and let the other team make mistakes and score penalties. If you like rugby union then great, good for you, I grew up playing it, I used to go to 5 nations games on school trips and I love the national fervour it generates but as a sport it is doesn't cut the mustard - it can, occasionally it can be superb, france v NZ in 1999 stands out but how can a sport work where richie mccaw is seen as one of the best players? He is a cheat, everything he does is against the laws of the game Here's a try from rugby league: greg inglis showing athleticism above and beyond AMAZING TRY
If you didn't watch it then you have no idea of the context, and why even watch a clip of the tackle if its just rah rah nonsense to you? How often do you see players given a red for a high tackle, which you see many more of in a game, and which is as dangerous as a spear tackle? No, the ref usually has a word and tells the offender to be more carefull. Warburtons tackle was within the first quarter of the match, it hadn't been a dirty game and there was no malice in the tackle, and he did not "dump" Vincent Clerc, he let him go, he didn't bury him. Refs have some discretion, and in the context of the game up to then, he was wrong to give a red. Incidentally, with the RL world cup in a coupla years time, it would be interesting to see how much of this "my code's better than yours" nonsense there would be from union followers. Very little I'll wager. Many, perhaps most, Rugby fans like and appreciate both codes and can even appreciate a bit of inter-code banter. I played league at Uni, to a very low standard I hasten to add, and the Union boys trained on the same pitch after us, so there was always a bit of friendly rivalry, its when it verges on the having chip on the shoulder that you have to say enough already, its just boring.
