The Crooked Feed No. 5

The Crooked Feed is G&GR’s occasional column of rugby tidbits and trivia, compiled by Lee Grant. It’s based on the “Non-set pieces” thread in the Rugby Discussion Forum — a repository for things seen, heard, overheard and otherwise soon forgotten, gathered at the grounds, online and over the airwaves.

Sportsmanship

• Manu Tuilagi, one of many brothers playing in Europe, got the England Young Player of the Year award, and he would have got the Best Punch in the Premiership gong too, if there was one. He whacked the finger-raising dive merchant Chris Ashton in the Leicester v. Northampton semi-final, right on the temple. He got a yellow card, but so did poor old Ashton, who did nothing more than try to push Tuilagi away. The bell rings at about 1:20 in this clip:
  [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-kZd7qNeBY[/youtube]

• Guy Noves is the famous coach of Toulouse and perhaps rugby’s version of Alex Ferguson of Man U. He’s been the ST coach since 1993 and is a very crafty operator. At home games he keeps all the match balls around him on the sideline. During the first half of the last pool match of the Top14, Toulouse v. Clermont, he kept delaying the delivery of the ball on restarts. The clock was running; why make the ball available when his team was playing into the wind yet 7–3 ahead? Finally referee Patrick Pechambert trotted over to him and gave him a rocket. Noves’s shrug was Gallic.

• Leinster skipper Leo Cullen complained to the ref that it was the other front row that was at fault in a scrum in the Heineken Cup final: ‘We’re coming up and they’re fooking pushing below.’ Not exactly a great defence, Leo: it sounded like you were pleading guilty. And the Saints scrum that marmalised yours had an inside centre packing on the flank because of a yellow card. He didn’t say anything after the next scrum: his eight-man pack lost a tight head to seven men, the No. 12 having returned to the backline. But the Leinster scrum made a comeback in the second half.

Commentators

• Matt Pearce (Sharks v. Bulls) on Bakkies Botha getting nine stitches in the back of his head: ‘You’ve got to wonder how they got a needle in there.’ Good point. Good point?

• Stuart Barnes at the end of the Leinster v. Northampton Heineken Cup Final, which Leinster won after being down 6-22 at oranges: ‘They must have been somewhere approaching shell-shock, yet they played the second half as though the first half never happened.’ He wasn’t the only one thinking ‘shell-shock’: as Bob Dwyer noted, Lions fly-half Jonny Sexton put it the same way.

• Brendan Cannon (Force v. Brumbies) talking about Rocky Elsom: ‘How big is he, in terms of his size?’

• G&GR’s own Brumby Jack didn’t enjoy the call by Canno and Greg Martin on Saturday night, judging by some of his tweets:
  

  22:30 Dear Marto, it’s ‘Owen’ not ‘Owens’ thank you.
  22:40 Shut up Cannno
  23:01 Canno, Rocky is not back for the Wallabies yet- settle down
  23:05 Shut up Canno
  23:07 How would you know Canno, you would have been in the Force rooms at HT cutting up oranges
  23:16 Dear Marto, Salvi doesn’t look like McCabe. Thank you
  23:27 Nice one Canno. Yanytuajudih or whatever you said

Referees

• Keith Brown (Blues v. Stormers) called it right when he judged that Habana took the ball over his own goal-line. He had to make the call himself because Super refs are constrained from asking their TMOs for advice on such matters. But a counterpart in the Top14 could have asked for help. The French have dispensation from the IRB to use the TMO more liberally in their domestic rugby. Two recent review requests pending the awarding of a try: ‘was there a knock on near the 22?’; ‘was there obstruction of a defender 30 metres out?’ The option is not invoked a lot, so it makes sense to give it wider acceptance. (TMOs don’t judge on forward passes.)

• A calf injury has ruled Steve Walsh out of Sunday’s blockbuster Reds v. Crusaders match; Stu Dickinson takes his place. That will be a big ending to a big month for Dickinson, who has just graduated Southern Cross University with a Master of International Sports Management ticket.