Some highlights of last nights Waratahs v Brumbies match showing what Mark Lawrence looks for before pulling a card from his pocket.
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Worth a yellow?
By Moses
Moses
Moses spends far too long on G&GR, dealing with the totality of the strength and conditioning, the medical, the rugby side of things, strategy, the review, preview of the internet itself and also the individuals. A Waratahs apologist and rib-eye steak enthusiast, he is often found working behind the scenes keeping the G&GR juggernaut afloat.
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Hoiles should have been sent for that. He wasn’t just standing his ground and he dropped the shoulder. Such a shame at the way the reffing effort went down.
I agree the Mortlock one wasn’t worth a yellow, any more than the Palu one was.
Check out the last angle from behind Hoiles where he digs his right foot in to shift his momentum right into Beale.
The Palu yellow card was entirely justified, he never got onside from the previous ruck, the ball wasn’t out and to make it a trifecta, he tackled the halfback without the ball it seems. A blatant attempt to do nothing more than kill the ball under his own sticks.
The only player in world rugby who gets away with that sort of behaviour is Richie McCaw.
The Mortlock decision was 50/50, he went through and cleaned out someone, through the gate or not is questionable.
The Hoiles decision was a penalty for sure, but nothing more. Nice dive by Ronaldo Beale. Serves him right for another aimless chip kick to nowhere.
Neither of the Brumbies infringments were remotely near a scoring opportunitiy for the Tahs, you can tell as the Tahs only score from pick and drives five metres out or from up-and-unders.
Really u don’t think hoiles stepped into him a little bit? He put on the brakes pretty quickly to make kurtley collide with him.
Not sure its worth a yellow though…
Ed did you read Juans post? “The Hoiles decision was a penalty for sure, but nothing more”. You are saying the exact same thing ‘Not sure its worth a yellow though’.
I agree with Juan (and interestingly Ed) above. Penalty but not a card in a million years.
I try to go by standards. I figure if Palu was sent off for what he did, Hoiles should have been sent too. Both should have just been penalties in a normal world.
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agreed. the position of the play is everything
Palu had a shocker, of that there’s no doubt. Still the ref said it was repeated infringements though this was the first occasion.
I reckon he did get onside at the ruck.. he made the first tackle then got behind the last Tah feet (Waugh I reckon).
I guess he just thought the scrumhalf took it out, from another angle it looked like he borked a bit and once Cliffy was on his way nothing could stop him.
That said, the ball was not in a ruck as all the ponies were on the ground… does this make a difference?
Palu’s yellow was a bit harsh but he didn’t look surprised by it. If you go offside like that in that position on the field everyone gets worried. Hoiles could have been a card but I think it’s easy to fall down like that when you know you can’t regather the kick. Mortlocks was never a card, didn’t even need to be called a penalty, in all honesty he didn’t do much more wrong than have a double digit number on his back while doing something at the ruck.
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True that.
I think morty would have been sent off had it been in from the side, but you hear the reff change his call from in the side to clearing out a non-ruck player (which is rediculous).
This was 30secs after the Palu and clearly was a makeup call cos the reff thought he was being harsh to the Tahs. He was but a bit harsh, but worse to morty.
I like the double digit in the ruck penalty analogy.
Agreed (I think)
Palu’s should have been a warning and a pen. To go straight to bin with no warning to any player is rediculous.
Morty’s was in from the side but Lawrence had dug himself a hole.
Quite a few blantant errors from the blonde highlights man
As I keep telling people, intent weighs heavier than the end result. It’s not the issue that Hoiles flattened Beale (and Juan, the accusation that Beale faked it, including the blood coming out of mouth is laughable mate). There’s just no way you can watch that footage and say anything other than Hoiles’ intent being to drop the shoulder into Beale and stop him getting past.
Sorry, I thought it was red powerade…
Looked like water going in, to me.
I don’t think he was faking. If he was Sharron would know and she would give him a clip across the ear.
I played flanker too long, I can’t see anything wrong with any of them!!!
More seriously, the Hoiles one in particular is one where the ref just has to be consistent at least but every ref sees it differently. I have seen some shockers like that both go for and against my teams over the years and there doesn’t really appear to be any consistent pattern of refereeing.
I would have thought, absent a prior warning to that particular player, that it would have made a very harsh yellow, much harsher than Palu’s since he basically killed an attacking play right under the posts.
Mortlock’s, well, Bobas is right.
Any thoughts on Robinsons infringement? The one where the penalty was reversed for Smith rucking. He was off his feet, playing the ball with his hands and in from the wrong side when the Brumbies were attacking and looked certain to score. I thought it was the worst infringement of the match. Did I miss something?
How could you penalise such a nice little chubby fella like Benn?
The fat ones are definately the most fun to ruck.
No, in order, the other flanker and the backs are :)
Particularly the 10
If Smith had of left it alone it would have been a penalty for the brumbies. You’re only allowed to ruck at the ball now (from memory), Smith was rucking Bennnnnn’s back, which is bad, even if he was lying all over the ball.
That’s my least favourite of all the ELVs. Someone like [Richie McCaw] is less hassle if you can ruck him off the ball, and fundamentally someone on the ball should be rucked off it.
Doesn’t seem consistent with speeding up the game either.
Any time I’ve been rucked (except for maybe two) it’s been deserved, but I agree in principle that the law should be ruck for the ball, not to punish the man. It’s not always that simple mind you.
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Unless it’s McCaw. He always needs rucking
Yeah I know what the law is in regards to rucking. But ignoring Smiths response for the moment, I still think Robinsons professional infringement was really bad. could have been a match turner. Is there scope to reverse the penalty and give a penalty to the Tahs for the rucking (as was done) but still card Robinson for the terrible professional spoiling play?
Obviously everyone in the rugby world except for the IRB is united in thinking outlawing rucking is stupid if referees continue to refuse to penalise the infringing defender.