Rugby Union @sh.itjust.works Olap @lemmy.world 6d ago

Autumn Nations Series - Week 4

Friday night rugby, with France vs Argentina to kick off things. Then Sat is Ire vs Fiji, Wal vs SA, and Ita vs NZ. Sun is Sco vs Aus, and Eng vs Japan

Been a great 4 weeks, lets hope for some great matches again! Game of the weekend looks to be Scotland vs Australia, and guess who's going?

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Well, to smash Australia was unexpected, but welcome. I still think Australia aren't bad, but also aren't good. Beating Wales and England isn't anything to shout about at the moment. It sets up the six nations to be epic. Scotland opening with Italy, and closing with the next in form team: France in Paris. February is looking very juicy
- 3rd tough match in a row for Australia and due to injuries this wasn't quite the same side that beat England. But I think more importantly Scotland's attacking style isn't one they are as easily able to combat. The first try to Tuipolotu in some competitions would get called back as it looks to me like he's standing well within the 10m that both attack & defence have to go back. But other than that well beaten - and they'll be disappointed for it.
  
  I still think (even if they lose to Ireland next weekend) Australia can look at the tour as a success though, given where they've come from after Eddie at least.
  
  Yes, beating England, thumping Wales, and turning up well to Scotland gets them a pass mark. Next week determines A, B, or C
  
  For Scotland, I'd give them a C personally. B would be closer to SA. An A to beat them. Could have also gotten a B by holding Aus to zero tries
Interesting that Barrett was immediately yellow carded for that croc roll; the sanction is only a penalty and given he didn't land on the Italian's legs, nor drove him head first into the ground etc its hard to see how that instance of it was a high degree of danger.
- Have to admit I skipped. Scoreline made it look easy, but was expecting both sides to score a touch more
This Italian stadium is what NZ really lacks when it comes to footie grounds, they're right on top of the action! We're only a small poor country so have always tended to build dual purpose until recently but rectangular stadiums for rectangular fields are just sooooo much better.
- Stadio Olympico is a great stadium. Very walkable from the centre of Rome too.
  
  The new stadium in Christchurch will be a lot more like Dunedin's covered stadium so that's a step in the right direction. There's a big fight in Auckland at the moment to make a rectangular football focussed ground down in the city itself.*
  
  Cricket NZ is pushing heavily for their favoured option which is an upgrade to Eden Park so every 3-4 years when India tours they can pack out 45-50k for a couple of T20 Internationals. But nobody wants to play or watch test cricket at Eden Park and there just aren't that many games of cricket in NZ that warrant a stadium that big. Of course that means in future we might miss out on hosting world cups but it is what it is.
  
  Another option is for the football ground to have some expandability but in my view that inevitably ruins the whole benefit of a rectangular stadium so hopefully it doesn't come to that.
  
  *Ie what the Labour Government offered to build for around NZ$500m or something way back in time for the 2011 RWC, but Aucklanders thumbed their nose at the idea in favour of upgrading Eden Park again.
- And even though I love seeing the ABs scrum super dominant, god I hate scrum penalties.
I'm on Scotland-A vs Chile instead of tgehe Wales match. On a knife edge with 15 to go
- I know Chile are on the improve, but is the Scottish 2nd team really that bad, or were conditions the levelling factor?
  
  Conditions were poor, but Scotland A hasn't played in like 5 years either. Got the win, they should be happy
Why are Wales playing in an alternate strip, when they're at home?

WR making contestable kicks OP yet again is not what the game needed.
- Sell more kits. Wales could do with the money
  
  Yeah true; and I guess you make more money selling your away strip to 50k at home, than to the 5k supporters who might travel to Sydney :)
France all over this match tonight. Argentina just giving away too many cards
- I only caught the highlights, so just popping in to post Laws:
  
  11.3: A player must not intentionally knock the ball forward with hand or arm. Sanction: Penalty. 11.4: It is not an intentional knock-on if, in the act of trying to catch the ball, the player knocks on provided that there was a reasonable expectation that the player could gain possession.
  
  I think 11.4 is refereed way too harshly and errs more towards "there is no reasonable expectation that a player could gain possession". From the clip I saw I think its pretty obvious that the Argentine player deliberately batted the ball up, which means there was at least intent to try to regather it.
  
  But in this case that is completely irrelevant as the ball clearly travels towards the Argentine tryline: https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxNEsyf87Fn03lEgccP0G0_FbIxLyGJe3E?si=QmATJ6QVRn2LYFgT
  
  This is a massive botch by the refereeing team - and just should not be happening when there's a bloke in slow motion watching things. That's 7 points off the French score, and 10 minutes with the Argentine team playing with 15, a really unfair result.
  
  I thought pretty harsh too, but I also thought it could have kept traveling forward and they have angles we don't always get. The french TV producers don't always show us every angle sadly
  
  Just wanting to add clarity to my opinion about the knock-on call, because its interesting seeing people defend it in the reddit threads.
  
  11.3 just say's "must not intentionally knock the ball forward"
  
  in World Rugby's definitions (https://passport.world.rugby/laws-of-the-game/definitions/):
  
  Forward: Towards the opposition’s dead-ball line.
  
  Ok great, so lots of people are saying because his hands moved the ball forward initially that it is a knock-on; but in this case the law is referring to the ball, not the hands and the ball travelled backwards.
  
  Knock-on: When a player loses possession of the ball and it goes forward, or when a player hits the ball forward with the hand or arm, or when the ball hits the hand or arm and goes forward, and the ball touches the ground or another player before the original player can catch it.
  
  Again, to me this is clearly talking about the the direction of the ball, not the hands or the arms.
  
  So I think people are applying the interpretation given to passing to any action involving the ball to which my opinion is that application isn't relevant here, and is only there for passing because its almost physically impossible to pass the ball backwards while on the run and nobody wants to see a game with 80 scrums for forward passes. Which if we're being pedants would actually be 80 penalties because all of those passes are clearly intentional!
  
  So really the only question's I have left are whether its a penalty to knock a ball into touch or not; it would be if the ball had gone dead, but it didn't it bounced over the sideline instead. I'm just struggling to find law's that mention that bit thus far!
  
  Ah, here it is:
  
  9.7b: A player must not: Intentionally knock, place, push or throw the ball with arm or hand from the playing area.
  
  Now that's definitely a possibility - so perhaps the refereeing team's comms were just shocking when they started talking about the direction of the hand. But does lead to adjudicating on intent rather than facts which I just really hate in general. I'm having a hard time being sure about it, he's definitely knocked the ball away from the other player, and it definitely went out of the playing area. Was he hoping to regather it? At best I can land on a maybe, but that has me going back to my feelings about reasonable expectations and what not - I dunno.

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