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If a team tops their conference but ends up 5th or 6th on the overall table do they still get home advantage? Should they?

He doesn't. If you look at the first video here. http://www.irblaws.com/EN/guidelines/ You can see what they are saying. I think it is fairly uncontroversial that it should have been play on, but a lot of refs (myself included) have been guilty of ruling that sort of thing as a...

Certainly a very good player a few years ago. I think he was a very poor captain however. His manner and interactions with the referees was counter-productive and I suspect cost his team dearly in close games. He also didn't strike me as the sort of guy who could lead the troops into...

Not bad, although your order is a bit all over the place. I like to have a definite checklist of things I run through in my mind every time a tackle (or something like a tackle) happens. Starting with *Ball carrier brought to ground and held (otherwise no tackle) *Tackler released *Ball...

I said this at the time the announcement was made, but it bears repeating. The 5 second rule at the ruck will virtually never result in a scrum. All that will happen is that the ref will command the halfback to use it, and he will do so. Never. Yet referees are fully entitled to order a scrum...

The first thing that struck me was that all the referees in the scrum trial called the engagement very quickly. This is on balance a good thing but will take some getting used to.

I can't imagine picking a world team without Read at No. 8. He has been immense for a long time.

I had a cup of beer thrown on me at the SFS stadium by some Aussie dickhead. Does that mean Aussie fans are "feral"?

The chocolate ration keeps going up and up as well. Long live Big Brother John O'Neil

I think Vuna is pretty lucky really. What he did is every bit as dangerous as a tip tackle. Especially since he has already been suspended once this year. It was accidental, but reckless. I think an argument could be made that the most serious of these challenges in the air should be...

The problem with that is teams will intentionally infringe when in defensive situations because they fear a scrum more than a quick tap.

Have you seen the footage of the incident? It is about 3 posts above you at the time specified in the post. Looks pretty damning to me as the player has 3 goes at it. McCaw has done very well to come through the middle of that maul by the way.

This is a subtle one, but it needs to be done because it currently makes no sense. Drop goal: I would add to the bolded part "unless the free kick was awarded due to a scrum offence". The reason is caused by the following anomaly: Blue team trailing by 1 has a scrum 10 m out right in...

Regardless of whether you agree or disagree with Matt Burke, there is no doubt that he is a very ordinary writer. That column reminded me of a 13 year old's year 7 school essay.

I haven't seen much of the Reds this year, but I assume he doesn't do this for them. I imagine he is under orders from Deans to slow the game down and ensure that the support players are there for the next cleanout. He is obviously concerned that if the support players aren't there a lot of...

There seemed to be a definite strategy of trying to hold onto the ball for long numbers of phases, waiting for the perfect time to attempt to break through. It reminded me of the old Brumbies style from the late 90's early 2000's. It seemed to work ok, but I wonder if it will work against a...

Regardless of the result it has indicated to me that our forwards are not quite up to the standard they need to be. Obviously this is to be expected after the loss of Thorn and Kaino, and with McCaw off his game. I am not too worried because I think that our new boys, Cane, Retallic...

When you see a replay of the incident, watch the Irish locks, they weren't pushing so much as walking around the scrum. That's what the penalty was for, and I thought that was what happened before NO blew it up.

Nah, that was a pretty clear penalty. You are allowed to screw the scrum but what you are not allowed to do is have the back 5 simply walk around. In reffing terminology that is called a whip-wheel and is pretty easy to spot because the twist comes from behind the front rows, and tends to...

Shocking stuff from us, great play by Ireland. Still, the way we kept our composure in the last few minutes and won was very All Black like. Has anyone seen McCaw play worse?