Ulster vs Tigers

[Jimmy Skitz]

Hi Jimmy, I have to completely disagree with you on Jordan.

First he was deliberately lying on the wrong side right in front of the posts making no attempt to move.
That's a yellow arguably right there. Then he decides to try and roll away just as the scrum half plays the ball. Not a coincidence IMHO.

Players know what they are doing in this situation. Lets not be kidded by their look of innocence or by the fact they play for our team.

I just felt he was trapped and moved when he could, was he at fault for getting trapped? maybe and that is probably a penalty, but I didn't feel it was deliberate, given the repeated Ulster scrum penalties not further punished by a yellow I felt it was harsh.

If I'm completely honest I'm not Jordan's biggest fan, I feel you what he's going to do all the time and is what Basketball folk call a ball stopper, he catches the ball puts his head down and charges, which is fine if he's making yards but he isn't, he needs to offload and pass a hell of a lot more for me and I'd like to see TTTE get a start next time out.

[Cockatrice]

Listen guys not trying to make any cheap points regarding Crane's yellow but would ask anyone to look again closely particularly the close up and watch the legs deliberately catching the Ulster player. In real time it does just look like he is rolling but on the close up angle from the touch line you see the leg movement as well.

I am not blinkered I even queried UR posters on Ulster site site that want to know why the ref didn't go to the TMO for the Jackson try/non try. He blew the whistle immediately I said and have never seen a ref then go to the TMO and ask whether the decision he has just made is correct and should be overturned and they call me stupid .

[RWA]

Crane was clumsy and had no complaints in my opinion, you hang around on the wrong side, you're asking for trouble. I'm still baffled by the scrum. How many times do you see this in games....one side dominant and then second half, it changes around ! Tigers well on top in the first half. Fair play to Ulster, they obviously spoke about it at half-time. So what do you do if you're continually going backwards ? What you do is, you try everything in your power to turn things around, to get the referee on your side. As plain as the nose on your face, they pushed up, out pops Cole and Youngs and all of a sudden, the touch judge and Poite are scratching their heads. I'm just annoyed that Cole & Co couldn't sort it out. Where was the yellow card in the first half ? It's so frustrating when everyone can see what is going on.

[sapajo]

Very surprised that the Ulster fans were booing and jeering during our attempts at goal kicks and penalties as I naively thought they were above that type of unsporting behaviour.

[Cockatrice]

Sapajo..... in part some put that down to when Ulster won the ERC in 1999 when it jumped from more 3 men and a dog watching to what you see today. For the most part average league gates swelled by a few thousand for HEC nights and with that came a section of those that think they are rugby fans plus more recently the odd football supporter (Norn Iron ain't doing to well at the moment) turning up to have a few drinks and generally make out they know the game inside out.

I was at the match on Friday and raised discussion on the Ulster site about some of this including a few guys in front of me who continuously shouted at Poite for not allowing the two tries by referring to him as a 'frog' with appropriate wording either side as well as "froggy' etc etc (hopefully you get the drift.)

They continued with the abuse and also whistled during the kicks and were advised to 'wise up' however since raising it on the Ulster forum it seems that shouting 'frog' and 'froggy' is considered by some posters as very acceptable behaviour for Ravenhill as of course the French ref according to them would never take any offence.

On the other hand I do find it offensive for people to shout abuse at anyone on the pitch simply because of his race, colour or nationality. If he was a poor ref I don't have a problem with saying so and I note that some here questioned his decisions just like some in Belfast questioned them also.... so maybe with both sets of supporters questioning him he wasn't that bad.

Fortunately the numbers are small and hopefully we will get to the level of our Munster brethren one day but in the meantime (well according to some of those same supporters) we should just be given the 5 points now for our pending BPW at WR in January to save us the bother of turning up then.

Big improvement on your last couple of visits to Ravenhill and hopefully we will improve on our trips to WR in January. Recall at the first meeting many years back UR fans giving you a rendition of 'Swing Low' hopefully it was taken the right way.

[Baggy Trousers]

Very surprised that the Ulster fans were booing and jeering during our attempts at goal kicks and penalties as I naively thought they were above that type of unsporting behaviour.

Allow me to explain. Normally Ravenhill is respectful of kickers, and indeed were on Friday in the main, but I'll tell you the reason. Toby was taking an inordinate amount of time out of that game.

He questioned Poite so many times over precious little, there was the time-wasting tactic of Bowden taking the ball in the centre at Tiger's 22s, messing about before finally throwing it wide to Flood. I can't be certain how many times it happened but at least twice because the whole process was identical, Bowden (decent player by the way) & Toby that it was hard to imagine it as anything but rehearsed.

Then of course the place kicks. Now of course Toby is entitled to his minute & I don't suppose that Poite allowed him any more than a minute but the kick where he was booed, happened right in front of me and having set the kick up he stood like a statue for I would estimate 15 to 20 seconds before beginning his run up.

As I say, he is entitled to that 60 seconds but with Ulster having got the upper hand after a poor start/good start by Tigers, it all added to the impression of time-wasting. That is why some began to lose patience and he was jeered, more so when he missed.

When Tigers declined to try to win the game with that final penalty, it confirmed to a lot of us that they had achieved all they wanted, getting the LBP & slowing the game down for the last 30 minutes.

I'm not justifying booing the kicker, simply explaining matters as I saw it. I'm sure you know that he was warmly applauded when landing his initial few kicks which he took in silence, the touchline conversion in particular.

[TomWeston]

Very surprised that the Ulster fans were booing and jeering during our attempts at goal kicks and penalties as I naively thought they were above that type of unsporting behaviour.

Allow me to explain. Normally Ravenhill is respectful of kickers, and indeed were on Friday in the main, but I'll tell you the reason. Toby was taking an inordinate amount of time out of that game.

He questioned Poite so many times over precious little, there was the time-wasting tactic of Bowden taking the ball in the centre at Tiger's 22s, messing about before finally throwing it wide to Flood. I can't be certain how many times it happened but at least twice because the whole process was identical, Bowden (decent player by the way) & Toby that it was hard to imagine it as anything but rehearsed.

Then of course the place kicks. Now of course Toby is entitled to his minute & I don't suppose that Poite allowed him any more than a minute but the kick where he was booed, happened right in front of me and having set the kick up he stood like a statue for I would estimate 15 to 20 seconds before beginning his run up.

As I say, he is entitled to that 60 seconds but with Ulster having got the upper hand after a poor start/good start by Tigers, it all added to the impression of time-wasting. That is why some began to lose patience and he was jeered, more so when he missed.

When Tigers declined to try to win the game with that final penalty, it confirmed to a lot of us that they had achieved all they wanted, getting the LBP & slowing the game down for the last 30 minutes.

I'm not justifying booing the kicker, simply explaining matters as I saw it. I'm sure you know that he was warmly applauded when landing his initial few kicks which he took in silence, the touchline conversion in particular.

Baggy you are clearly a more reasoned commentator than many of your fellows who pop up on here, but the penultimate paragraph is just nonsense and shows no understanding of the way Tigers want to play the game. In the last 30 minutes, points but not pants way down, Tigers would generally still try to play for a win and not a LBP, which is exactly the way we played against Saints to bag a draw a couple of weeks back. Our HC pool is not an easy one and a 4 point win is a much nicer place to be than having just a LBP.

[Cockatrice]

Tom..... If I am correct it was the last penalty by Flood that attracted the most interest in terms of whistling and/or booing and which is the subject of most conversation here. Having watched the penalty again I note that Toby stood up from the tee at approximately 60.45 and kicked the actual penalty at about 61.16.

Excuse the exact accuracy I was not using editing software simply the pause button so I make that approximately 31 seconds to take the penalty. There was of course some setting up prior to that but unfortunately the camera was showing a repeat rather than the teeing so it is difficult to be totally precise.

For the record I have no issue with a player taking the allocated time to take his kicks. The TV commentator passed comment as did the MC over the speakers. The persons directly in front of me were unaware that there was an allocated time and when I asked why they booed they said because others did.

[Cockatrice]

Tom.... have since took the opportunity to check back on the penalty that was awarded for the Jackson 'non try' and again due to TV cutting it is difficult to be precise. Jackson appears to start his return journey from the Leicester line at 41.43ish.

Bearing in mind that is was Toby that chased him down the whole way he appears to leave a second or two later. Paddy seems to cut back across the referee at 42.13ish and one could presume that Toby arrived more or less at the same time given the penalty was 20 metres or so short of the Ulster line.

Sensibly Toby was always going to take as long as possible given the chase and the jog back and presumably needed to steady himself. Due to the TV coverage the camera doesn't cut live until Toby standing back from the tee at 42.58 and then taking the kick at 43.24.

I seen nothing to suggest that Toby took longer than the allocated time however long the perception though he probably pushed that one to the limit which he is entitled to do.

Anyhow in response to sapajo and as alluded to earlier after Ulster won the ERC in 1999 there was a sizeable increase in the average attendance however with 13 years or so behind them now they have learnt to respect opposition kickers and by and large Ravenhill is respectful.

More recent football fans have started to come across and follow 'their wee country' and with it I have noted a degree of ignorance at times. Also and to a lesser degree again the games now attract fans that watch Ice Hockey where it is normal to boo the opposition throughout the game and maybe some of this filters through into the rugby game. in my own case I was close to a very few fans that simply knew little or nothing about the game and whistled, booed and shouted abuse at the referee throughout the game.

They left for the bar early due to one or two advisory comments from other 'more reasoned' spectators around them and thankfully these so called fans are a minority. I have been playing and watching rugby for over 40 years and last week was the closest I have yet been to a Leeds Utd v Man Utd match that I was at many years ago for the abusive language from specific individual spectators directed at those on the pitch. There is no place for it at rugby.