Posts by Warwick Eade
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except he had his back turned to the guy
Except he had his backed turned to him is a decent sized exception.
Even backhanded I cannot see Luke McAlisatiar with his arm across the chest.(I guess then we're not arguing about McAlistair's right to hold his ground.)
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Question boils down to this: Is there any point where you guys would consider that that referee calls made the difference between winning or losing?
Sure the ABs could have been better (that's their cross to carry no matter how well they win). And they regularly lose to better teams on the field. But from a 2 point margin, where there's a 17 point swing from the ref.....the best team lost.
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One thing saldly lacking in rugby punditry is actually discussing what happened on the field. Passion, mongrelness, corporateness, pampering and arrogance has to be given a context on how we lost the game on the field otherwise its just hot air.
The tight five (including Robinson) owned the French at scrum time, in lineouts and at rucks (mauls were more even I think) . The cross field kick had no outcome.
We lost, that happens. Did we deserve to lose? In '99 and '03 yes. Yesterday the ref's decisions (well documented already) on the field were the overwhelming difference. Everything else is trivial in comparison.
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And if McCaw thought we had such good cause for a penalty he should’ve pointed this out to Barnes.
Yes, I think if had Gregan been our half back we would have won the game.
In all football codes you are allowed to hold your ground. If you run at a defender he doesn't haveto get out of the way - it's absurd.
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You cannot compare one yellow card decision with wholesale removal of offside from the game - there's no comparison. The Azzurri were complacent, the ABs were stitched up.
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The pick and go grind was the way to go against a very resolute French defence. It was expertly executed by the AB’s and it got them into many scoring positions.
They just didn’t realise they were playing in a game without the offside laws. In any other test we would have seen 4-5 kickable penalties for the AB’s in the final 60 minutes.
The ref bottled.
Nothing wrong with the AB’s psych.
Kind of the opposite in 2002 where the ref didn't bottle and stood up and awarded a legit penalty to minnows that Italy never expected would be given because they were playing minnows.
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You play to the conditions and guess what, when you play against the hosting nation you also play to an extent against the ref.
In a two point game France scored half their points against 14 men and made the break that led to the winning 7 pointer from a clear forward pass. A 17 point swing from the referee towards France.
Under these circumstances there are only two ‘play to the conditions ‘ options you have– (a) play the referee, (b) make sure you create a points buffer bigger than the referee’s swing. We haven’t had option (a) since Sean Fitzpatrick retired. Unfortunately the ABs were only good enough to create a 17 point buffer when, with this referee, they really needed a 20+ points buffer.
And this analysis doesn’t even begin to quantify the effect of 60 minutes where the French had immunity from the offside rule. Given the same immunity in their code, the French soccer team would win every world cup. But no one would pretend they did so on merit.
This masochistic belief that the All Blacks need to be better than the opposition and a massive points swing from the referee before they deserve to win is as weird as it is common.
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The press (and MSM in general) are having a huge identity crisis.
After years of regarding themselves as ‘the special ones’ they suddenly find that a swarm of amateurs can do large parts of their job at least as good, probably better.
When they try and write about what makes the professionals different from the amateur horde they trip up very quickly. Jeff Jarvis has blogged this at length and with great insight.
Whaddarya? – journos are struggling with that these days and hence the venom. I think there will be plenty more.