If I had a couple complaints to make about Mr Brown - and its not in favour of either team, but :
1) He appears to be applying the NRI and forgetting about some of the other ruck rules. A couple of times in the game he's had a defender clearly not supporting their own weight. At one stage I think the young #7 for the Stormers (Louw?) is flummoxed by a decision that a few minutes before went his way in exactly the same circumstances. I accept that the player is the first man at his feet to arrive and has all the rights, but by putting your elbows on the ground (for example) you aren't on your feet, therefore you've no right to the ball. Similarly, players coming into the ruck to clean out and going immediately off their feet - one minute he canes you, next he doesn't. Hard to know where to draw the line when the ref isn't consistent.
2) He's just a teensy-tiny bit of a completely fucking pedantic, scrag whore's donut-punching syphilitic bastard son at scrum time. I do understand why and I do wish the Tahs' props would have put their fucking brains into gear and LISTEN for the calls. When he says "touch", you fucking touch. When he says "pause", you fucking Pause. When he says "engage" you FUCKING HIT THE fluffybunny AND NOT A SECOND BEFORE!!!
He's one of the best refs of a maul I've ever seen at this level though. He knows when its stopped, and he tells the players to get their shit together and start moving it again. He also forgot to penalise players for tackles up around the neck, though these were largely harmless.
But jeez the number of times the Tahs are isolating themselves is disgraceful. Their lack of commitment and passion is damning on Hickey's coaching style. What kind of culture does the place have that these guys can't bar up for playing for the best state in Australia?
Have to say that Baxter was shocking in the open play and not much better at scrum time. Might be time to put Palmer back in for a couple of games.
However it does beg the question of why the scrum did not dominate. Rookie lock Douglas is part of my theory - the binding just wasn't good enough and you could see it in the 52nd minute where the scrum sort of tenses up and then collapses on the Stormers' feed. Douglas is pushing Robinson who gets good drive off the hit, then stops once the Stormers tight side locks out. On the other side, Baxter with the more experienced Caldwell behind him is making the real ground. However there were a couple of occasions where the Stormers popped up on their own feed under pressure and Brown didn't do them for it - the pressure isn't coming on fast enough for him to make a decision as the ball is coming out already.
And Barnes is fucking awful up until Hangers comes on. Time to move him to 12 and Hangers to 10 and put Beale on the bench or at fullback. Carter looks like an almighty pussy who is afraid to get hurt and should be ejected. Put Sidey there. Shit, anyone. The whole backline moves laterally and transfers pressure to the poor mug who eventually gets the ball and tackle at the same time. If Hangers goes to 10 and we're forced to put Cart-horse in at 13, then Hangers can start cutting Beale out and have Tommy run straight onto it AT THE DEFENSE. Right now Tom ain't doing jack or shit.
Whoever said we look unfit is right. Hopefully we're building that as the season goes on, as well as some width and urgency. We're standing around waiting for the whistle to go when we see a knock-on instead of mucking in and smashing a few blokes when we get a free shot.
Hickey surely must see that what he tried last year, and with a better back line this year, is failing miserably. And in the biggest dick move of the year, he yanked Mitchell who despite missing his usual number of tackles was one of the few weapons we had on attack. WTF is up with Hickey's brain? You can't blame him for the Tahs only starting to show some good play when they're down by more than 14 points though.
And the Stormers defensive communication was excellent. All the sleight-of-hand (I use the term loosely, her honour) we tried was met with contact and very few half-gaps. Which just shows our attack isn't smart enough to create gaps or use them. Got to applaud the Stormers coaches and their team culture for that.
And, on refection, I'm really enjoying what Bob Skinstad brings to the commentary box, and the view in Cape Town is great:
