Clermont V Tigers - all threads merged here.

[g]

I saw Parra sinking his teeth into Chuters arm. Why is it that a grown man feels the need to bite another grown man. I thought it was only children who bit one another.

[sapajo]

there is none so blind as those than cannot see

[Iceberg]

http://www.zimagez.com/zimage/391941101 ... 88068n.php

[Aymeric]

Could you please explain how you can bite someone with a mouth guard?


I do not say that Parra did not have the desire to bite .. but telling he really did it, seems silly (imho)


Nice pics Iceberg

[parkerd68]

And Chuter's "high" tackle was initially across the chest, which is not high as far as I am aware.

Does it matter if he was wearing a mouthguard or not? (or what brand ).

The bottom teeth would still be exposed, and the intention is clearly there.

[sapajo]

Could you please explain how you can bite someone with a mouth guard?

How about opening your mouth and closing your lower jaw or do you have a new method unknown to human kind?

[Jimmy Skitz]

considering Alain Rolland is half French, how come he's allowed to ref a game involving a French team playing in Europe, the Football authorities don't get much right but they wouldn't allow this situation.

I'm casting no aspersions on the man in question but it just seems odd to me

[drc_007]

Could you please explain how you can bite someone with a mouth guard?

How about opening your mouth and closing your lower jaw or do you have a new method unknown to human kind?

Which reminds me of a match a long while back. The ref pulled over both front rows apparently someone had been bitten. Up pipes the tight-head "can't have been me, my teeth are in the coaches pocket"

[biffer]

considering Alain Rolland is half French, how come he's allowed to ref a game involving a French team playing in Europe, the Football authorities don't get much right but they wouldn't allow this situation.

I'm casting no aspersions on the man in question but it just seems odd to me

Yes you are. You're casting doubts on his ability to be neutral because of his background. Otherwise you wouldn't have raised it in the first place.

[Jimmy Skitz]

not at all, I'm mainly a football fan and believe they are honest BUT in order to prevent any type of conspiracy accusation refs from England wouldn't ref the England team or club sides in European competitions, I don't think Howard Webb for example would be given a Rangers/Celtic game either.

As I said from that point of view this is something that strikes me as odd and as the Football way removes the doubt that someone could have, fans are often blinkered and will be certain they were robbed even if the ref was spit of and this just removes another stock to beat them with.

Would someone from Leicester/Northampton be given that game for instance?

[Aymeric]

You're ridiculus, comparing with football only show you're discussion low level.

Unless Chuter actually had or has a bite-mark on his arm, then there is absolutly no evidence.

Granted, we have occasionally seen players suspended on no more evidence than the say-so of the 'victim', but these are very occasional. So if Chuter didn't mention it to the ref at the time and point out a big chomp-mark on his arm, then nothing can be done. That picture doesn't actually show anything untoward. Stills are notoriously misleading.

Do you wanna see a picture of a citable move?

http://i49.servimg.com/u/f49/12/29/89/36/sans_t12.jpg

[Jimmy Skitz]

You're ridiculus, comparing with football only show you're discussion low level.

Unless Chuter actually had or has a bite-mark on his arm, then there is absolutly no evidence.

Granted, we have occasionally seen players suspended on no more evidence than the say-so of the 'victim', but these are very occasional. So if Chuter didn't mention it to the ref at the time and point out a big chomp-mark on his arm, then nothing can be done. That picture doesn't actually show anything untoward. Stills are notoriously misleading.

Do you wanna see a picture of a citable move?

http://i49.servimg.com/u/f49/12/29/89/36/sans_t12.jpg

Or maybe you've just shown both your own snobbery towards Football as a sport and those that follow it and ironically a lack of basic English.

I posted what I did out of curiosity as much as anything, when it comes to watching Rugby I'm a novice and until very recently my only intake was the 5/6 Nations. I come to it with a different set of norms in the way the games are governed and asked for an explanation of something which to me, is highly unusual.

Rolland has always seemed to be a decent ref when I've seen him in 6 Nations (not that I'm the best judge) and it seemed odd that a man with French (albeit duel) nationality would be given a European tie involving a French side as I never see that happen in my main sport so I asked the question.

In these days of betting rings and "spot fixing" in Cricket for instance, I would of thought that the sport would do all it can to avoid any suspicious implications

[Aymeric]

and ironically a lack of basic English.

Désolé si mon anglais n'est pas suffisamment bon pour toi, mais ce n'est pas ma langue maternelle, alors je fais ce que je peux...

Bonne journée! ET bonne chance pour le match retour

(http://translate.google.co.uk/)

[Tiglon]

http://www.espnscrum.com/heineken-cup-2 ... 44283.html

Very interesting to look at the stats.

They conceded 70% more penalties than us - one every 5 minutes! We also had complete dominance in the scrum, and parity in the lineout. Forget about the attacking play for a moment, if we can't take advantage of that situation then we will never compete at the top level. Swap goalkickers, and we probably win the game.

Looking at the kick/pass/run stats, we see a remarkable similarity between the two teams, until the final stat - metres run with ball. Despite making roughly the same amount of runs, Clermont managed well over twice as many metres. However, is this due to their attacking prowess or our defensive weakness?

Analyzing further stats indicates it was both. Despite Clermont missing 8 tackles, Tigers only made one clean break - I'm assuming that was Youngs' try, therefore not one missed tackled by Clermont resulted in a clean break. Three reasons for this come to mind immediately. One, our lack of pace. Two, Clermont's defensive organisation (we break through one tackle, another defender is waiting). And three, the offload statistic. One offload in an entire match is a sad indictment of our attacking play - watch how the best teams score tries and you'll see that offloading is key to changing the point of attack and breaking through defences.

The defensive stats speak for themselves. Tigers missed nearly 2 out of every 10 tackles, which simply isn't good enough. It's obvious that defense is still a huge problem.

I still think we were harshly treated by the referee as well. On the whole Tigers were quite well disciplined - only 10 penalties. To me, neither yellow card was warranted. Neither was a particularly bad example of high or late tackles and I maintain that a penalty would usually suffice.

However, despite all these issues the main one for me is the first - goalkicking. That was the deficiency that had the biggest impact on the scoreboard. If Flood isn't capable of kicking at the moment, we desperately need to get someone on the pitch who is - the Heineken Cup isn't a competition where you can get away with this weakness.

Stats don't always explain everything, but in this match they are very illuminating.

Looking forward to next weekend, unless the backs can suddenly and vastly improve both defence and attack (unlikely!) then it seems the best gameplan is to keep it tight, keep it in the forwards and get someone on the pitch who can kick penalties.