suisse wrote:Indeed. But I agree with what ROG said. Unless there is some sort of rule change fans might stop turning up.
Ireland fans didn't stop turning up after getting boned by terrible refereeing mistakes so I don't see this happening.
On the BBC highlights show last night with POC, Guscott and Jonathan Davies, the point made was if Italy had tried that against New Zealand, NZ would have adapted to it in an instance and blown Italy off the park. It's not Italys fault, or the fault of the laws, if Englands players on the pitch are too pig ignorant to work out how to combat the tactic (pick and drive) and the coaches are too stubborn to get an instruction on the park to work against it.
NZ would have treated it as a turnover situation and played their normal game.
Simple picking and going or breaking by sh would seem to the solution.
England set up a few mauls I think but it looked cumbersome
Mirror, Mirror on the Wall who's the greatest player of them all? It is Drico your majesty.
Frankly it was worth it for the look of sheer concentrated stupid on Dylan Hartley's face when he was talking to Poite.
Eddie Jones is the Jose Mourinho of rugby. Some people like that kind of thing. I don't. But it was funny when he was whining that following the law of rugby union isn't rugby.
Absolutely this.
We're only talking about it because it took England so long to work out what was going on.
Credit where it's due to Italy.
And also discredit where it is due: the English coaching team. The excuse regularly given in the papers for behaviour of coaches like Jones and Mourinho is it distracts attention and deflects blame from the players and makes the conversation about the coach. Which apparently is a good thing. This was a coaching failure, a really high profile and embarrassing one for Eddie. I didn't see him taking on the blame after the match. He messed up. His players were ill prepared.
Personally I just think he should be mercilessly mocked for it. See how his legendary Bantz stands up to it.
Frankly it was worth it for the look of sheer concentrated stupid on Dylan Hartley's face when he was talking to Poite.
Eddie Jones is the Jose Mourinho of rugby. Some people like that kind of thing. I don't. But it was funny when he was whining that following the law of rugby union isn't rugby.
Absolutely this.
We're only talking about it because it took England so long to work out what was going on.
Credit where it's due to Italy.
And also discredit where it is due: the English coaching team. The excuse regularly given in the papers for behaviour of coaches like Jones and Mourinho is it distracts attention and deflects blame from the players and makes the conversation about the coach. Which apparently is a good thing. This was a coaching failure, a really high profile and embarrassing one for Eddie. I didn't see him taking on the blame after the match. He messed up. His players were ill prepared.
Personally I just think he should be mercilessly mocked for it. See how his legendary Bantz stands up to it.
Next time they are interviewing him they should start circling around him.
"Horrocks went one way, Taylor the other and I was left holding the bloody hyphen!"
Given what I've read in the Torygraph and Grauniad I don't see any desire to expose Jones for his own incompetence. Rather they have circled the wagons and said "it's not cricket".
As I've said before rugby coverage in many jurisdictions is official propaganda.
They are right. It is not cricket.... it is rugby. I have no issue with what the Italians did. The laws are there and they found a way to work the law just like our choke tackle. I would agree that if that was the way the game was played it would put people off but I do not see that happening.
As said here the issue was not the Italian tactic but the lack of a response from england. I think that the whining is silly and they should just move on and focus on the next match. There is no need to change any rules there is only a need to educate your plays to play rugby.
The more I have focussed on the results we need for this 6N, the more I am convinced of how unfair is the scoring system.
Given the inevitable imbalance in home / away fixtures, I believe the try bonus point structure should be amended as follows:
Try Bonus (Home team): 4 tries and at least four tries more than opponents
Try Bonus (Away team): 4 tries, regardless of number scored by opponents.
Try bonus point would become more difficult for Home team but remain the same for Away team. This should even up the 3/2 home advantage some teams enjoy each year.
Ruckedtobits wrote:The more I have focussed on the results we need for this 6N, the more I am convinced of how unfair is the scoring system.
Given the inevitable imbalance in home / away fixtures, I believe the try bonus point structure should be amended as follows:
Try Bonus (Home team): 4 tries and at least four tries more than opponents
Try Bonus (Away team): 4 tries, regardless of number scored by opponents.
Try bonus point would become more difficult for Home team but remain the same for Away team. This should even up the 3/2 home advantage some teams enjoy each year.
That makes a lot of sense actually.
"This is breathless stuff.....it's on again. Contepomi out to Hickie,D'Arcy,Hickie.......................HICKIE FOR THE CORNER! THAT IS AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ruckedtobits wrote:The more I have focussed on the results we need for this 6N, the more I am convinced of how unfair is the scoring system.
Given the inevitable imbalance in home / away fixtures, I believe the try bonus point structure should be amended as follows:
Try Bonus (Home team): 4 tries and at least four tries more than opponents
Try Bonus (Away team): 4 tries, regardless of number scored by opponents.
Try bonus point would become more difficult for Home team but remain the same for Away team. This should even up the 3/2 home advantage some teams enjoy each year.
That makes a lot of sense actually.
+1
Mirror, Mirror on the Wall who's the greatest player of them all? It is Drico your majesty.
Reading Kitson today in the Guardian he makes the point 'all' Scotland have to do is win v Eng, win with a BP v Italy and sitting on 18 points 'potentially' enough to win the title. Ireland win last 2 (w/o TBPs) would also be on 18. That prompted me to check the 6N website for the 'rules' - not very informative. If teams are level on points what's the next determinant (points diff? head to head? etc). I may have missed it somewhere but it would be nice to have it explained in full on the 6N interweb
desperado wrote:Reading Kitson today in the Guardian he makes the point 'all' Scotland have to do is win v Eng, win with a BP v Italy and sitting on 18 points 'potentially' enough to win the title. Ireland win last 2 (w/o TBPs) would also be on 18. That prompted me to check the 6N website for the 'rules' - not very informative. If teams are level on points what's the next determinant (points diff? head to head? etc). I may have missed it somewhere but it would be nice to have it explained in full on the 6N interweb
desperado wrote:Reading Kitson today in the Guardian he makes the point 'all' Scotland have to do is win v Eng, win with a BP v Italy and sitting on 18 points 'potentially' enough to win the title. Ireland win last 2 (w/o TBPs) would also be on 18. That prompted me to check the 6N website for the 'rules' - not very informative. If teams are level on points what's the next determinant (points diff? head to head? etc). I may have missed it somewhere but it would be nice to have it explained in full on the 6N interweb
Ruckedtobits wrote:The more I have focussed on the results we need for this 6N, the more I am convinced of how unfair is the scoring system.
Given the inevitable imbalance in home / away fixtures, I believe the try bonus point structure should be amended as follows:
Try Bonus (Home team): 4 tries and at least four tries more than opponents
Try Bonus (Away team): 4 tries, regardless of number scored by opponents.
Try bonus point would become more difficult for Home team but remain the same for Away team. This should even up the 3/2 home advantage some teams enjoy each year.
Which is why they should have announced a new scheduling system at the same time. It wouldn't get rid of the 3/2 split, but at least every year the home and away fixtures would be decided on a rotational basis - maybe even with a skew to favour the sides that finished bottom the previous year.
Ruckedtobits wrote:The more I have focussed on the results we need for this 6N, the more I am convinced of how unfair is the scoring system.
Given the inevitable imbalance in home / away fixtures, I believe the try bonus point structure should be amended as follows:
Try Bonus (Home team): 4 tries and at least four tries more than opponents
Try Bonus (Away team): 4 tries, regardless of number scored by opponents.
Try bonus point would become more difficult for Home team but remain the same for Away team. This should even up the 3/2 home advantage some teams enjoy each year.
Which is why they should have announced a new scheduling system at the same time. It wouldn't get rid of the 3/2 split, but at least every year the home and away fixtures would be decided on a rotational basis - maybe even with a skew to favour the sides that finished bottom the previous year.
Good point. Why are they the way they are now? Has it always been that way?
Ruckedtobits wrote:The more I have focussed on the results we need for this 6N, the more I am convinced of how unfair is the scoring system.
Given the inevitable imbalance in home / away fixtures, I believe the try bonus point structure should be amended as follows:
Try Bonus (Home team): 4 tries and at least four tries more than opponents
Try Bonus (Away team): 4 tries, regardless of number scored by opponents.
Try bonus point would become more difficult for Home team but remain the same for Away team. This should even up the 3/2 home advantage some teams enjoy each year.
Which is why they should have announced a new scheduling system at the same time. It wouldn't get rid of the 3/2 split, but at least every year the home and away fixtures would be decided on a rotational basis - maybe even with a skew to favour the sides that finished bottom the previous year.
Good point. Why are they the way they are now? Has it always been that way?
does reinforce status quo to have the current fixture system, plus IMO it slightly favours traditional powers
used to be that the same fixtures were always the same weekends, to make up an example Ireland and France always played first weekend etc, might be a carry over from that
Retired from babbling. Can be found on twittter @okeeffesimon