The Official English Rugby Thread

[sockwithaticket]

Scott inexplicably avoids red for shouldering Adendorf in the face.

Dickson (in his own words): Always high + high level of force + ball carrier didn't change height = yellow card.

[Oxbow]

Not good seeing Mitchell off, hopefully it's only something minor.

[Hal Jordan]

"Targeting the standing leg" as we see Biggar upended by an impact on his kicking leg, with the standing leg basically untouched.

Still a yellow, mind.

Twats on Twitter "Game's gone soft"

[Oxbow]

Injuries have done us right over here. And Dickson, he's a poor referee.

[sockwithaticket]

Let's see if Saints can use the turnover to manage the last few minutes. That would be a sign of growth.

Injuries have done us right over here. And Dickson, he's a poor referee.

He's equal opportunities poor, though.

[sockwithaticket]

Well, well. they almost blew it by handing possesion back after the turnover pen, but secured another not long after and didn't make the same mistake again.

Some really dogged defence in that second half.

JvP coming on for Leicester did wonders for them and surely Youngs must be relegated to the bench now?

[Oxbow]

Let's see if Saints can use the turnover to manage the last few minutes. That would be a sign of growth.

Injuries have done us right over here. And Dickson, he's a poor referee.

He's equal opportunities poor, though.

Pretty much, aside from the obvious red card. Not sure how we hung on there in the end, but any win against Tigers is always sweet.

[Saint]

Been sat in a pub garden watching on an 85" screen. Don't for the life of me understand how that wasn't a red card. Dickson literally called out the red card criteria

[JM2K6]

Will Evans' season is over, fractured tibia thanks to that shoulder charge on him while he was already being tackled. But hey, it missed his face by an inch, so Carley figured it was only worth a penalty.

[Margin__Walker]

He gets the same injury there whether Nott tackles him as the second man or braces his shoulder into him like he did.

Crap result for Evans, but I'm not sure it's worth a witch hunt.

[JM2K6]

He gets the same injury there whether Nott tackles him as the second man or braces his shoulder into him like he did.

Crap result for Evans, but I'm not sure it's worth a witch hunt.

I doubt it, the level of force is quite different. You shoulder charge someone running at you and they fly backwards. You tackle them properly and there's a lot more give.

[sockwithaticket]

Sucks for him and Quins in the context of what's left of this season. For him in the long run, as a jackalling back rower, a break should be a relatively quick and full recovery.

[Raggs]

Looks like Launchbury has done his knee. In a lot of pain. Balls.

[sockwithaticket]

Pleasantly surprised to be up at half time, could've been more if Odogwu had passed to Miller on the outside...

Looks like Launchbury has done his knee. In a lot of pain. Balls.

Felt so bad for him.

Healey was being a real prick (shocker, I know) suggesting it happened as part of an attempted trip. No evidence of that.

[Raggs]

Pleasantly surprised to be up at half time, could've been more if Odogwu had passed to Miller on the outside...

Looks like Launchbury has done his knee. In a lot of pain. Balls.

Felt so bad for him.

Healey was being a real prick (shocker, I know) suggesting it happened as part of an attempted trip. No evidence of that.

Yeah, that was a shitty comment.

Odogwu showing a wingers instinct and not a centres. Had that been Wade, the pass would have been made though.

[Hal Jordan]

Umaga sold Joseph a dummy like a grifter selling a bridge to an American.

[Raggs]

Sorry, but Launchbury's restart work is awful.

Healey, if that had been Leicester you'd be saying that's flat and it should be given anyway.

[sockwithaticket]

We won a game! Obano's red card with 7 to go really turned it, we'd been under the cosh for most of the second half 'til that point

[assfly]

I'm still amazed with the amount of red cards we're seeing every weekend. I understand the need to tackle the ball to slow things down, but surely the high chances of a red card outweigh the benefit?

[JM2K6]

I'm still amazed with the amount of red cards we're seeing every weekend. I understand the need to tackle the ball to slow things down, but surely the high chances of a red card outweigh the benefit?

Honestly a lot of the red cards are for things like shoulder charges into rucks, tip tackles, or big dumb Saffers smacking someone in the face with their forearm during a scuffle. It's not just about the tackle - players seem to have not understood that they need to cut this shit out.

[ASMO]

The clubs themselves have to do a lot more to these players, fines, or even bans on top of the ones they get from the RFU. It just seems they get a few weeks off, still get paid and it is all forgotten about, yet an incident like Obano yesterday actually cost them the game and points. Imagine if they was a relegation battle, i would be fucking livid if i was a team mate, DOR and owner

[Margin__Walker]

I'm still amazed with the amount of red cards we're seeing every weekend. I understand the need to tackle the ball to slow things down, but surely the high chances of a red card outweigh the benefit?

Honestly a lot of the red cards are for things like shoulder charges into rucks, tip tackles, or big dumb Saffers smacking someone in the face with their forearm during a scuffle. It's not just about the tackle - players seem to have not understood that they need to cut this shit out.

Will be an interesting disciplinary for AO. Repeat offense (so perhaps going to miss out on the standard sanction cut for a guilty plea), but you'd think this would be a candidate for a low end entry. Even though pretty much everything is 'mid range' entry these days to the point where I'm not sure what the point of that scale is.

[sockwithaticket]

The clubs themselves have to do a lot more to these players, fines, or even bans on top of the ones they get from the RFU. It just seems they get a few weeks off, still get paid and it is all forgotten about, yet an incident like Obano yesterday actually cost them the game and points. Imagine if they was a relegation battle, i would be fucking livid if i was a team mate, DOR and owner

It certainly puts a dent in any top 4 ambitions they might have had for this season. They're now 13 points adrift of 4th with games to play. Still would have been an outside shot even with a win, but that's better than where they are now.

I do get the impression that coaches either think going high and stopping the ball from getting away is still worth the risk vs. an occasional red or simply don't care. If they wanted to change player behaviour, it would be changing more quickly than it is. That said I do think it is changing, albeit slowly.

[Raggs]

I'm still amazed with the amount of red cards we're seeing every weekend. I understand the need to tackle the ball to slow things down, but surely the high chances of a red card outweigh the benefit?

Honestly a lot of the red cards are for things like shoulder charges into rucks, tip tackles, or big dumb Saffers smacking someone in the face with their forearm during a scuffle. It's not just about the tackle - players seem to have not understood that they need to cut this shit out.

Will be an interesting disciplinary for AO. Repeat offense (so perhaps going to miss out on the standard sanction cut for a guilty plea), but you'd think this would be a candidate for a low end entry. Even though pretty much everything is 'mid range' entry these days to the point where I'm not sure what the point of that scale is.

I suspect low end is there for those occasions where the panel suspect the ref may have got it wrong, but don't want to actually undermine the ref.

[Brazil]

I thought the Obano red was unfortunate, not unlike the Rob Du Preez one last week. Both were clumsy rather than malicious, but the protocols and the zero tolerance approach meant that they both had to walk. I think we'll see players get more used to it over time and we'll see fewer instances where they make a hash of things in the tackle. It's noticeable that players aren't really contesting the decisions or pleading innocence anymore in these sorts of incidents, which suggests a change in mentality has already occurred.

[JM2K6]

I'm still amazed with the amount of red cards we're seeing every weekend. I understand the need to tackle the ball to slow things down, but surely the high chances of a red card outweigh the benefit?

Honestly a lot of the red cards are for things like shoulder charges into rucks, tip tackles, or big dumb Saffers smacking someone in the face with their forearm during a scuffle. It's not just about the tackle - players seem to have not understood that they need to cut this shit out.

Will be an interesting disciplinary for AO. Repeat offense (so perhaps going to miss out on the standard sanction cut for a guilty plea), but you'd think this would be a candidate for a low end entry. Even though pretty much everything is 'mid range' entry these days to the point where I'm not sure what the point of that scale is.

Yeah, that sounds about right. The guys on the Quins board are trying to make out that it can't be a red card, that "if it was so bad why wasn't Rona checked for a HIA, eh??", etc, but the bare facts are: he deliberately struck Rona in the jaw with his forearm. He did it hard enough to rock his head back. He did it without major provocation or any other mitigating factors. And he's twatted someone in the face before, quite recently.

Yes, it wasn't like he threw a haymaker or fractured Rona's cheek or anything, but it's a clear red card and I'm not sure the relative lack of force is going to make this a particularly short ban. Obviously I won't mind if it does, but I think we're looking at 4-6 weeks at least, almost entirely because of his previous crime being so similar (if much worse).

[Margin__Walker]

Yeah, striking is the offense, not striking hard enough to require an HIA.

Bath fans were saying the same the other week when Dunn elbowed Creevy. It's such a soft red to concede and luckily for AO it didn't end up costing the game.

[JM2K6]

AE - he's an Esterhuizen not an Ousterhuzen ;)

I was making the point elsewhere that we had Botta yellowcarded in the 'A' game against Bath, for throwing a punch that didn't connect. Not really a surprise that a strike to the face is red. But they keep on banging on about high tackle laws and levels of force deciding if it's just a yellow, yadda yadda. Deliberate foul play is always going to be treated harshly, I don't understand why this is so hard to accept. I bloody well hope the players get it.

[Margin__Walker]

Ha, must be thinking about the appliance retailer, given he's built like a fridge.

[JM2K6]

Yeah, it's ridiculous. Which reminds me - the other thing about the 'A' game was we had Lasike at 12 and Lennox Anyanwu (19 or 20) at 13. First time seeing Anyanwu. He genuinely looked as big as Lasike, and the first time he hit a line on their 22 he carried 3 people about 10 yards.

We've also signed some Nordie centre who used to be in our academy and he's a unit too. All of a sudden we're swimming in gigantic midfield players.

[Margin__Walker]

Remember hearing about Hyde when he was an U18. Has he been getting proper game time for Ulster?

[JM2K6]

Not as far as I can tell. No idea if that's meaningful or not.

[Hal Jordan]

We're just a bunch of Size Quins.

[Kawazaki]

The clubs themselves have to do a lot more to these players, fines, or even bans on top of the ones they get from the RFU. It just seems they get a few weeks off, still get paid and it is all forgotten about, yet an incident like Obano yesterday actually cost them the game and points. Imagine if they was a relegation battle, i would be fucking livid if i was a team mate, DOR and owner

Footballer's get fined by their clubs if they get red cards, think it's usually something like two weeks salary. There might be a similar thing in rugby?

[Hal Jordan]

Banning them for a number of matches instead of a period of time would be a good start.

[Margin__Walker]

Banning them for a number of matches instead of a period of time would be a good start.

They do that now tbf. RFU release these for each sanction now, which are actually pretty handy and take out some of the mystery of the process.



Edit - Just noticed he got a low end entry for that. Forget what I said earlier, they clearly do use low end on occasion

[Hal Jordan]

That clearly says "Weeks", not "Matches". He happens to be ineligible for matches coinciding with the ban period.

As an extreme example, Callum Clark. His 32 week ban ran from 22 March-1 November meaning that a good chunk of it was served when he wasn't playing any rugby anyway. Had he been banned for matches, it would have meant his summer break meant nothing against his sentence, which I think (and who am I) is the better way.

[sockwithaticket]

I think that's just someone getting the word wrong, pretty sure that A couple of seasons back Diamond tried to invent a Sale A fixture to get through a ban quicker (Solomona?) because it is measured in matches rather than weeks.

[Margin__Walker]

That clearly says "Weeks", not "Matches". He happens to be ineligible for matches coinciding with the ban period.

As an extreme example, Callum Clark. His 32 week ban ran from 22 March-1 November meaning that a good chunk of it was served when he wasn't playing any rugby anyway. Had he been banned for matches, it would have meant his summer break meant nothing against his sentence, which I think (and who am I) is the better way.

It confirms the exact matches he's unavailable for on the image in the bottom right. These are further away than three weeks. The wording is odd, but the definition of the matches to be missed is unambiguous. Assuming these are slightly more complicated when a team is involved in knockout competition still, but the sanctions are pretty clearly based on missing a number of matches rather than a set period of time now.

[sockwithaticket]

Launch has fully ruptured his ACL apparently. Guess we won't be seeing him 'til the end of the year at the earliest.

Really gutted for him. Was probably an outside bet for the Lions this time around, but he's a lot beefier than many of the other locks apparently in contention so probably had as good a chance as anyone who didn't play in the 6Ns and having been snubbed last time it would've been nice to see him get a shot. Even if he didn't go it would've been great to have him back in a white shirt for the summer tests, he was sorely missed in the 6Ns.