Eng vs Wales: Ref & Beeb Commentary Team

[bc]

Ok, despite giving it several hours to calm down, I still feel I have to have a rant concerning this evenings game in Cardiff.
I have to admit that I sat down to watch the game expecting England to be on the end of a cricket score. However, the display from Kaplan must rank as the most one sided I have seen from a referee in any game of rugby - and that includes 'home' refs at mini rugby games!
England certainly commited offences but no more than Wales yet Kaplan awarded his first penalty to England after 31 mins!
He choose to ignore Wales being consistently offside, dangerous play (the Byrne/Armitage incident last week would have been a yellow card and probably would have been if the roles were reversed) and forward pass (Halfpenny try). Finally holding on to the ball in the tackle - I saw Goode tackle Halfpenny, get to his feet and try and rip the ball which was held. He then fall across the player on the ground when the ball was still held and more weight arrived at the ruck . Goode yellow carded.
Overall and incredibly myopic referring perfromance ( I will probably be accused of a myopic view!)
The we move to the BBC commentary team.
When is Eddie Butler going to manage to identify players correctly? Every match he commentates on he cannot get non Welsh players names. Croft was Narraway today!
Having ex England players on the commentary team is a disaster, they are never going to admit that current players are better than them. I thought Healey was poor in his assesment today.
Jonathan Davies "Wales deserved to win, England were negative today" - er England 2 tries, Wales 1 ?

[FloydRaser]

Agreed, awful ref. Can we get the bald bloke from the old Vauxhall ads, the one who does f**tball?
The media interview and scrutinise the players and management of both teams in rugby and f**tball but wouldn't it put pressure on refs if they had to give an account of their own performance to the press after each match?
That woman from the beeb or Jeremy Paxman should sort em out.

Ah, the experts. In engineering the definition of an expert is: an ex is a has been and a spurt is a drip under pressure.
They are paid good licence payer's money to say something. Anything. So long as it's entertaining, procative or mildly interesting; it doesn't have to be true. Ex players are queueing up to do it. Take it with a pinch of salt. It could be worse: I saw a Super 14 match Friday night and little boxes kept coming up with a player's individual stats in it; how many tackles made, missed, yards gained etc etc. American style. I hope it doesn't come to that.

[welshy3]

Ref let you down again huh? God that must be quite something when refs are out to scupper your side. Imagine that. Can I suggest you send and email to the IRB or the WRU or summut..(signed "on behalf of english supporters everywhere").


It's pathetic really how England supporters can't take a loss without kicking up a stink about something. Kaplin warned england three times and then had enough (Brian moore even saw this coming). He had enough of them cynically preventing probably tries (2 tries to 1...against such a deeply cynical side is fine btw). England refused to let wales recycle the ball in the red zone. Basically I am bored and sick to the back teeth of english fans now..roll on france and irleand where it is always a bit of fun and hopefully we will see more graceful supporters..

[Hull Fan]

My question would be was Steve Borthwick in Kaplin's ear enough telling him what he thought about the welsh infringements.

10mins to go and Ryan Jones is all over england ball, we get a penalty but why hasn't he gone to the bin. We're on their line and pressing for a try, whats different to AG sin bin?

Surely SB should of had a word with Kaplin then!

I don't want players screaming at refs like in other sports but the captains got to try and run the game for his team.

Good effort from the boys, something to take forward.

[Vincenzo]

..........was it just me but when Sackey went down the wing, came up to a couple of welsh players and kicked on he was wiped out by a textbook tackle but ages after the kick, no infringement.
Englands first try, Goode chips on and is wiped out, again no infringement. Although the ref correctly played on to allow Sackey's score he should have taken action.
I hope when the ref gets to review his performance he will also see the shots acroos the pitch. Ellis about to retrieve ball from ruck, England line sloping backwards as you would expect across pitch, Welsh defensive line sloping forwards a good 2m!

[Longshanks]

What process does the IRB have, I wonder, for reviewing and acting upon the performance of Referees? I thought Messrs Johnson and Worseley were remarkably measured in their on-camera assessments of what conspired again them but what formal action can and should be taken to investigate the approach of officials. Cricket umpires, we hear, have a post-match appraisal of their on field decisions for their future guidance - what scrutiny is applied to the conduct of their rugby counterparts?

[Tigerbeat]

Assessors are in the stands assessing the referees performance. At the end of the game the findings are discussed with the Ref.

[Mr. Grumpy]

Basically I am bored and sick to the back teeth of english fans now..roll on france and irleand where it is always a bit of fun and hopefully we will see more graceful supporters..

Tarring all England fans with the same brush eh? As you’re reading and writing on an English club forum, what exactly are you expecting from us? You might want to go through your posts on the forum and review the amount of positive statements you have made about... well anything.

[bc]

It's pathetic really how England supporters can't take a loss without kicking up a stink about something. Kaplin warned england three times and then had enough (Brian moore even saw this coming). He had enough of them cynically preventing probably tries (2 tries to 1...against such a deeply cynical side is fine btw). England refused to let wales recycle the ball in the red zone. Basically I am bored and sick to the back teeth of english fans now..roll on france and irleand where it is always a bit of fun and hopefully we will see more graceful supporters..

Interesting view, I seem to remember your countrymen expressing the same views about the ref when beaten 60-26 by England! Anyway, as I said I expected England to lose and they did. I have no doubt they deserved penalties but Kaplan's inability to referee the game in an even handed manner was a major influence. All I ask for is a consistent approach and that was not here yesterday.

By the way welshy3, I don't expect you to agree with anything I have said but I do notice that neutrals have expressed a similar view - the Ulster website has a long thread about it.

[welshy3]

The three times Kaplan warned england about prevent quick ball and possible tries in the first five minutes..

1st pen, Eng were blatantly offside at the ruck on wales ball in wales 22 (1 min)

2md pen, (2nd min) mears & bothwick both offside and came in side the from the side within the red zone. Kaplan warns eng captain. he could easily have let Williams go with the quick tape = 3 points instead of 7.

3rd pen, 5th minute - again through the ruck. this time Easter again blatant. Ref tanks to Eng captain again. Clearly says 'next time...' - halfpenny missed the pen attempt.

So instead of 10 nil, it's only 3 nil after 5 mins...

To this point, all blatant and justified the warning... so what's the problem exactly?

Ryan jones and wales were warned once in the 70th minute of the match..after playing within the laws all game (when he was trapped in the bottom of the ruck for heavens sakes) and you want him off immediately?

[WhitecapTiger]

I don't think anyone is disputing that England players transgressed, and were stupid enough to continue transgressing once warned by the ref welshy3....

No-one can argue that the Welsh players weren't warned, but they weren't warned as often ......therein lies the problem for me......Ref jumps on England indiscretions with warnings immediately (rightly or wrongly is not really in dispute in my mind) whereas he 'appeared' to offer Wales a token gesture warning after 3 or even, dare I say it, 4 repetitions of offences for which England were penalised far quicker - which to me = lack of consistency.

England didn't appear to listen to, or play, the Ref......Wales didn't need to do either..........and not because they were in the right IMO!

We lost, end of......

[El Guapo]

I'm surprised that yesterday's ref is being regarded as myopic and biased by so many English fans - does this mean all the other refs who have put England top of the penalty (cheating) table are equally biased?

Does this also mean there is some sort of conspiracy against England - particularly when they lose?

[Fair Play]

You have to laugh at the English crying.

You were stuffed by the far better team.

Your attitude was towards damage
limitation and not sneaking out of
Cardiff with a total humiliation
which the rugby world expected due to your
total negative,boring play up and until now.

Some refs are wise to your cheating tactics
of continual offside and handling on the ground when you
are in danger,lucky yesterday we had one of them.

Were you crying about the ref in your Hieneken cup
final against Munster,which you won by a blatant act of
cheating,which even you lot cant argue against.

I think not,take a defeat with dignity you little babies.

Glad to see johnson try to make you actually
play rugby,although it will take a little time since
its so long since most of your players were actually
told to do that

[chinnjamie]

You have to laugh at the English crying.

You were stuffed by the far better team.

Your attitude was towards damage
limitation and not sneaking out of
Cardiff with a total humiliation
which the rugby world expected due to your
total negative,boring play up and until now.

Some refs are wise to your cheating tactics
of continual offside and handling on the ground when you
are in danger,lucky yesterday we had one of them.

Were you crying about the ref in your Hieneken cup
final against Munster,which you won by a blatant act of
cheating,which even you lot cant argue against.

I think not,take a defeat with dignity you little babies.

Glad to see johnson try to make you actually
play rugby,although it will take a little time since
its so long since most of your players were actually
told to do that

complete rubbish.

[Tyzot]

I think that all fans (Welsh and English) tend to wear spectacles of different colours - it adds to the fun!. But there are a few facts that can easily be verified e.g. England were warned twice before the first yellow card (It's on the commentry soundtrack) and the Welsh try was from a forward pass ( easy to measure by the mower tracks on the pitch). The areas of debate are around if the ref had a preconceived view of how England were likely to behave and therefore warned early, and had a short fuse for any transgressions ( probably not helped by ill judged comments to the media by M.J. and poor captaincy by Borthwick in not highlighting Welsh repeat offences).

Either way Wales played the ref better and got the rewards. As several posters have said - if the ref warns you, you had better listen.

You see it a lot in the GP - if you get on the wrong side of the ref it can be very expensive.