6 nations 22

[BaggyTrousers]

Wales cheated against Georgia by forcing uncontested scrums when Georgia began to demolish them late in the game 4 or 5 years ago and held on to win narrowly. I believe that was the game that ushered in this law.

As the old rhyme went:

Taffy was a Welshman
Taffy was a thief
Taffy came to our house
And stole a lump of beef.

That day, Taffy blatantly abused the existing law and saved a game they were being eviscerated in, thus holding on for a narrow victory. The law is a good one but occasionally such as Sunday, it is exposed as imperfect. The answer is as I've described about cards but that law remains valid.

Player protection is fine & necessary but World Rugby needs to stop the farce of ruined games, the 20-minute card should effectively mean that the team with the upper hand will win 19 out of 20, but will not inevitably render games no-contests.

[BaggyTrousers]

Fair points Allez, on Afoa I can never hear his name mentioned without recalling that his wife hated Belfast so much that she was mentioned in discouraging a potential big-name NZ signing to go elsewhere.

There may or may not be any truth in that but what is undoubtedly true is that in 2014 Mr Smug - Shame Slogan - announced at a season ticketholders pre-season meeting, what a shrewd decision 'letting Afoa go' was because was seriously injured and his career would not be long in ending. Subsequently, he has played over 100 games for Glaws and at 38 he is still playing at Bristol and has played well over 50 times for them.

I hope that renews everyone's interest in hating SLogan until his inevitable death. I have only Donal Spring as a man in Irish rugby that I have more interest in celebrating on hearing of his death. Nucibastard makes up a hated & hateful triumvirate.

Remember, you aren't Jesus - NEVER forgive, NEVER forget crimes against Ulster Rugby. As someone famous in NI once said NEVER NEVER NEVER or as we say locally, NUNCA NUNCA NUNCA.

[WestDr]

The difference between the way the ball carrier and tackler are treated stems from the fact that it is the tackler who is responsible for the height of the collision.

Not trying to get at you personally here ALV, but that sentence completely demonstrates what is wrong with the current Laws. Firstly it would be more accurate to say that the current Laws deem that it is the tackler who is solely responsible for the height of the tackle. Secondly, as the incident on Sunday shows (a) Faiva was standing still (or had his feet planted and was not moving forwards to make a tackle) and (b) the person who was controlling the point of contact between the two of them was Sheehan. He had the choice of where to attempt to get past Faiva [cf. soft shoulder], but the entire responsibility of ensuring that the contact, and its aftermath, was safe was Faiva. Who had little, if no, choice nor control over much of the impact process. That's why I likened to Jerome Kaino, and to an extent, Gilroy's red where neither player had much control over the impact process. The current Laws do not in my view allocate responsibility fairly [which of course explains why the 'mitigation' idea has crept in....]

This all goes to show the truth of the 'hard cases make bad law' cliche. No one incident will be identical, and there are always lots of different ways of seeing something - ask the police about eye witness statements. What I do believe is that any hard and fast rule that 'any contact to the head of the ball carrier. [note: not the tackler] is deemed to be dangerous' without any penalty falling on the ball carrier to have a duty of care to the potential tackler - i.e. proper enforcement of 9.11 player welfare for all players (and beyond the current 'elbow or forearm') is rather limited. I doubt head injuries and long term damage are limited solely to the ball carrier - and I'd surmise that to state 'he got his head on the wrong side' or 'his tackle technique is poor' will, sooner rather than later, be seen as an equally unacceptable acceptance of a potential cause of player injury and long term ill-heath. I can see 'or shoulder' being added to 9.11 and the reference to 'shoulder-to-shoulder' in 9.1 being much mroe closely linked to 'running for the ball'.

Of course, we can take the alternative course, as demonstrated by Australian RL where it seems just about anything goes and the discplinary process happens after the match. The on-field violence in a State of Origin match is stupendous.

Or finally, we can accept it's imperfect and continue to both discuss it and rage at the refs about it.

[jean valjean]

While we are on the issue, let's reignite this chestnut....

https://www.the42.ie/world-rugby-hurdle ... 0-Mar2022/

[rumncoke]

Allez

Your idea that the tackler has the option to go low and protect his head is based on the assumption that the tackler can direct his head behind the knees and/or legs of the ball carrier theoretical bullish-t and impossible to achieve when a ball carrier opts to run, at full pace, straight at a would be tackler his aim being not to run round him but to run through him and over him . It is also based on the assumption that while going low the tackler can maintain sight of the direction and intentions of the ball while looking at the ground .

It is find in theory but total bullish-t .

A tackler or player when he his being run at has but only two options to stand his ground or step aside going low is seldom a choice available.because he will lose sight of the intentions of the ball carrier and find himself committed to a tackle he cannot and will not make while putting his head directly in the path of the ball carries hips, thighs, knees or boots all equally capable of causing severe head injury without any means to avoid injury .

[Cap'n Grumpy]

A tackler or player when he his being run at has but only two options to stand his ground or step aside going low is seldom a choice available.because he will lose sight of the intentions of the ball carrier and find himself committed to a tackle he cannot and will not make while putting his head directly in the path of the ball carries hips, thighs, knees or boots all equally capable of causing severe head injury without any means to avoid injury .

He has more than 2 options Rum'n, and you should remember at least one other from your own playing days. The reason the third option is not used is simply because players are coached not to go low, at least not when tackling solo, in order to prevent an off-load, but that is still one of the tackler's choices.

In my day, we were coached how to tackle a ball-carrier running straight at you, particularly if he was bigger than you, and that was to put yer shoulder into his waist and wrap, with head to whichever side he stepped off, hold on like grim death, drop to the floor while still wrapping him, until you were left holding only his ankles, by which time he has stopped running and gone to ground due to his legs being pinned. It was an old adage, but a true one, that you can't run while someone has your ankles pinned together.

In all my years of playing, I only got a bad blow on the head once and that was in my very first year of playing, bringing down a player twice my size. It cost me a concussion due to being knocked out as he kneed me on the top of the head, but true to those days, after a few minutes with a wet sponge slapped in my face, I played on. No subs back in them days of course unless you lost a limb, or were in serious danger of imminent death. Mild or moderate danger of death was not a good enough "excuse" to leave the field in them thar days, as you will recall. The jury is possibly still out as to whether it resulted in any brain damage to me . . .

It didn't appear to do any brain damage to his patella.

One thing that collision taught me though was to avoid the knees of fat lumps when you were tackling them, so it improved your technique if you were willing to learn. And yes, I know and have already conceded that players don't want to do that nowadays because the ball carrier will likely off-load, but I'm just pointing out that in most aspects of play, there are usually more than just one or two ways of doing things, merely a limited number of preferred ways of doing things. There is a difference.

Of course, I may have mis-remembered the whole incident.



Did I ever tell yous that I once got knocked out when tackling a big fat lump who was charging straight at me with the ball? I think I tried to prevent the off-load or something and he tried to hurdle the tackle . . . something like that anyway.

Or was it nothing like that?

When's the team being announced?

Is last week's match being shown live on TV anywhere?

[flatpass]

England v Ireland, Sat 12 March

15. Hugo Keenan
14. Andrew Conway
13. Garry Ringrose
12. Bundee Aki
11. James Lowe
10. Johnny Sexton (captain)
9. Jamison Gibson-Park
1. Cian Healy
2. Dan Sheehan
3. Tadhg Furlong
4. Tadhg Beirne
5. James Ryan
6. Peter O’Mahony
7. Josh van der Flier
8. Caelan Doris
Replacements:
16. Rob Herring
17. Dave Kilcoyne
18. Finlay Bealham
19. Iain Henderson
20. Jack Conan
21. Conor Murray
22. Joey Carbery
23. Robbie Henshaw

[allezlesverres]

Surprised to see Henderson on the bench - would have thought they'd use him and Beirne at 6 to combat the large Anglais. In effect Farrell has selected POM ahead of Henderson which is a bit of a surprise.

[jean valjean]

Ireland lost out in the physical stakes against France and then go with a weaker pack again against England. Starting healy and pom along with a lightweight second row is asking for trouble. Farrell better give us the tackle bag holders back.

[StandUp]

Surprised to see Henderson on the bench - would have thought they'd use him and Beirne at 6 to combat the large Anglais. In effect Farrell has selected POM ahead of Henderson which is a bit of a surprise.

Hoping Henderson rides the pine for the full 80+ and a draw as the result. Don’t want either team to win.
Cmon Ulster, give the ladybiys a shellacking and bate them out the gate.

[tigerburnie]

England: Steward; Malins, Marchant, Slade, Nowell; Smith, Randall; Genge, George, Sinckler, Itoje, Ewels, Lawes (capt), Curry, Simmonds.

Replacements: Blamire, Marler, Stuart, Launchbury, Dombrandt, Youngs, Ford, Daly.
There's a couple in there I wouldn't have as waterboys, but it's not a bad side

[big mervyn]

I see Ireland are 2 pt favourites on the handicap.

That can't have happened too often at Twickers especially with Engerland fans' predisposition to bet on their own side.

[Dave]

Who is laughing like a fcuking hyena?

[Jetstream]

Just watched the Welsh game. How did Beard get on the Lions test team in front of Hendy? How did he get selected for the Lions party in front of Ryan?
Gatland is a twisted bitter fúcker.

[justinr73]

I thought the plus ten on the handicap for Wales was too easy and took 4-1 on them winning on the night instead.