Different Week, same old story

First topic message reminder :

For the second week in a row, the All Blacks were robbed by an appalling decision by a local TMO.

After the shocking debacle in Port Elizabeth a week ago, toothless Paddy O'Brien's IRB refereeing so-called Elite panel have come in for more criticism after a shambles in the Tri-nations decider between New Zealand and Australia.

This time the villain was parochial Australian Matt Goddard. Faced with with video evidence clearly indicating a 22 meter restart after excellent work by All Black Veteran Muliaina, the local notorious Australian indicated to controversial Englishman Wayne Barnes that he believed a 5 meter scrum to his home team Australia was warranted.

With 3 key backrowers temporarily injured, Australia worked a move close to the scrum and scored what turned out to be the games clinching try.

Barnes, who himself this time took a more active role than usual in the All Blacks down fall after impeding Adam Thompson as he attempt to put a tackle of Samo, creating an unimpeded run to the try line for the Australia 8, was this time additionally rather let down by his assistants. Firstly Goddard, and secondly by another South African who was fooled by some Hollywood theatrics by Adam Ashley-Cooper who ran into the back of Kevin Mealamu and then threw himself to the ground in the style more befitting the closing act of Hamlet. This was enough for the South African to disrupt All Black momentum and award a penalty shot to Cooper.

IRB head referee Paddy O'Brien has presided over an era of controversy as chief referee. Many experts have levelled blame for the fall of the games professional adjudication into chaos as he has failing to address the inadequate level of the so-called top level referees. O'Brien was responsible for appointing inexperienced Wayne Barnes to referee the All Blacks when the were thrown out of the 2007 world cup in one of the worst refereeing displays in the professional era where he failed to penalise France for any one of 27 indiscretions in the last 60 minutes and missed a blatantly forward pass.

O'Brien was also responsible for the debacle which saw the two hemispheres play under different rules for 2 years throwing the global game into chaos.



Unsurprisingly Cooper missed the kick, but the controversial Australian already looks set to miss the world cup after being cited for a cynical off the ball knee to the head of All Black legend Richie McCaw. Many industry pundits have suggested that despite the obvious cynicism that Cooper may escape sanction if O'brien continues his trend of inadequate accountability in the global game.

"Unless Paddy gets off his chuff and does something about the state of the game, this kind of unacceptable travesty will continue to roll off the international rugby conveyor belt." our correspondent said.

TheGreyGhost wrote:Linebreaker, you are a WUM and don't deserve to be a moderator.

I've already had to report you to yourself twice. Don't make me do it a third time.

How am I a wum? Look in the mirror mate... there's a WUM.

Waiting for your 'report'...

In all honesty, NZ were far too loose in the first half. DC particularly was playing poorly. The forwards were not playing with a great deal of intensity. I suspect one eye on the RWC. It looked casual.

For 20 minutes of the second half they unlocked the wet weather game plan and utterly dominated. Coming back from 20-3 to 20-20 in the space of 15 minutes. Suffocating Australia out of the game.

For some reason, they then started going wide again and paid the price.

If Goddard hasn't made an enormous man sausage-up and Barnes had punished Australia when they were under pressure instead of reverting to his old-school pinging the attacking team for pedantic infringements it could have been a different result.

But NZ lost it in the first half. Perhaps the unsettling effect of rotation coming into play.

I agree with your first three paras GG.

However, Barnes was correct in the attacking infringement as the ball was not released quickly enough. He held on to it because he was in danger of being isolated as there were more Wallabies at the breakdown.

How can you have it both ways?

You have a very kiwi-centric view of the world GG, when they win it's because they dominated, when they lose it's because they were poor. To be perfectly honest, I don't think NZ lost it in the first half, I think Aus won it.

Title of the thread is also incorrect. It should read:

"Same Week, Same Old Story"

Christ Samo made Thomson look like a child!

Yeah, but to be fair he had injured his shoulder before that tackle and should have come off if he wasn't feeling 100%

if you are a NZ fan you must be choked

No mate, a saffer through and through, but still need to be objective.

It's funny how New Zealand are the only team that referees ever get decisions wrong for. Deal with it and move on. After that first half I think New Zealand should be looking at themselves not trying to blame the ref. Never deserved to win

Never deserved Matt Goddard, Barnes, Clancy and some local South African drafted in at the last minute under suspicious circumstances in the space of two weeks either.

It was a Namibian, its the country to the west of us with the big desert and lots of diamonds

Well deserved wins for Australia and England today.

Biltong, it's like saying a New Zealander is Australian.

Ah poor New Zealand getting the same treatment as everyone else.

Sorry, i thought us 'Poms' were the whingers!

Best team won GG, gotta suck it up sometimes. Barnes is a quite awful ref but in this instance, as in most, he gets enough decisions wrong for both teams for it to even out.

nottins wrote:Walsh wasn't the referee that day, it was Kaplan.

Nottins i commend your efforts to pick the very many holes in GG's arguments but we're not dealing with a sane, rational mind here.

Absolutely brilliant game as a neutral. Some poo reffing but not to the obvious advantage of either team. However, i'm now coming to dread an AB loss and the utterly predictable whining from a small minority of their fans.

Absolutely fine to question a ref's performance but this is dangerously close to football-like buck-passing. The real question is whether it harms the ABs to have no capacity to recognise their own faults. Thankfully i think GH is much more capable in this regard than GG.

Don't think the officials favoured either side over all, some odd decisions but both sides got away with a bit.

In the 3rd quarter of the match the All Blacks looked to have sorted things out and found a match winning tactic, and I have no idea why they didn't persist with it. Like it or not the Aussies are the best attacking side in rugby at the moment, and the All Blacks weren't going to win this game by making it an open match. Blown away a bit in the first half, Henry seemed to have fixed things, but then in the final quarter the Aussies managed to escape the rut of simply defending rucks, and broke away.

Some interesting individual performances. Stephen Moore was absolutely excellent, and with Pocock, the only Aussies to really stand up to the All Blacks when they were dominant in the 3rd quarter. Samo is obviously a broken game talent and his try was awesome. In the backs Ioane looks really sharp, and McCabe has all of a sudden become an essential functioning cog in the Aussie back line.

I thought McCaw struggled a bit in comparison to Pocock on this occassion, and Carter didn't have a good game. Nonu looked pretty decent though and as always Smith was effective and tactically astute. I still think there's a bit of sparkle missing in the NZ backs with Guildford and Jane both playing, and I think Gear would make them sharper. Thompson also isn't good enough for the ABs 1st XV. Kaino can't return quickly enough.

The better side won today, as with last weekend, and I think the ABs are having a bit of a wobble at the moment. That they didn't have the clarity of thought to nail the win in the 2nd half when they clearly had the tactic and the capabilities should be a worry to ABs fans.

Agree about Guildford and Jane together. Too much the same. Perhaps they'd have more impact if they weren't consistently trying to cover for the yawning gaps appearing in Muliaina's fitness. Dagg please.

It's tricky to play with a disrupted back row, and the we missed read and Kaino today. Thompson is a good six, but he needs to be backed up by a very physical 8. It's too much of an ask for him to play the hit man and be a carrier.

Still, that game could have been won, and with a little bit less of a Goddards it would have been. I'm just hoping we've got our ref critical bad calls out of the way nice and early.

Oh and Nottins - If you don't know the history of Walsh and the 16 man affair, then it's best to quietly leave it alone rather than wade in and make yourself look like an idiot.

Momentum is key going into the WC....New Zealand seem to be crumbling earlier than normal!

Agree...Eng will go into 1/4s off the back of 5 straight wins...probably against France where i expect them to win. Aussie semi....will be a cracker. Ireland will be lucky to get past Italy based on August. Wales must at least perform against SA and not be blown away. I think they will. Both Sam and Fiji will be a test but i predict a quarter v Aussies. That will hurt. Scotland can take Argies for ru but their RWC will end v ABs.

As for the favourites....Sean F says its better that they have lost two games, means they will be less confident...what a load of BS...just heaps on the pressure with Bokke and Aus beating them in the build up....great news for the comp though.

I'm normally a silent observer, and can often see the value in GG's postings, but this thread has been a pretty bad performance dude. Glad your last post has seen you calm down a wee bit.

As for the game, I think the win will be a real fillip for Australia and for NZ could either inspire a gritty world cup win or mount too much pressure on the squad. Depends how you look at this game I guess.

I'm beginning to think Greyghost and Arsene Wenger may be the same person. When both of their teams do something questionable,they wither don't comment or claim not to have seen it....

It's been one heck of a day for greyghost with NZ losing and England winning.

All the fault of the officials in both games of course.

I think the world cup actually needs an AB victory to regain some of the credibility it lost with the food poisoning, gold watch, refereeing controversies and the poor reputation it got last time around for being incredibly boring.

TheGreyGhost wrote:Linebreaker, you are a WUM and don't deserve to be a moderator.

I've already had to report you to yourself twice. Don't make me do it a third time.

What? You have had to report a poster twice;bet you would have been a collabo in occupied France

Yeah I think a change is necessary, I do hope the Springbok management watch what the springboks eat the few days before their clash with the All Blacks, i also hope greyghost isn't the caterer.

Maybe the "boring" bit NZ did in the second half showed them how to come back when defence is tight.

GG,I though it was a 22 but let's face facts,referees make mistakes. Any sport would be boring if everything was exactly correct every time. We watch sport for the incredible highs and the dizzying lows. NZ lost today,it's not the end of the world and the WC is still ahead,let's move on!

GG, face facts. You were beaten by a better team and no amount of whining about what the ref did/didn't do wrong will help.
It's amazing, though, how much less of an influence McCaw is when there are NH referees who aren't actually scared to warn/penalise him for being offside.
Learn to have some dignity and read the England/Ireland threads - the Irish guys aren't running aorund blaming the ref or saying that if they had had a diferent decision given in the first minute, every play after that woud have been different and they would have won. They are humble enough to admit that things are going sideways and will even go as far as to say England played well particularly in the pack.
Read and learn.
You do yourself and fellow Kiwis no favours with your insane/inane ramblings and, quite frankly, you are the biggest bore on these threads.

Cry me a river GG, cry me a feckin river.....

Meh, go feck yerself. I'm entitled to point out mediocre refereeing.

McCaw was outstanding today I thought, essentially holding together a fairly rag-tag back row after both Read and Thompson went off. In fact in the first 20 of the second spell, the ABs dominated in the tight and the loose aspects.

It was really lack of penetration from the back three that let us down. Weepu looked starved of options, and someone has to call time on Mils. It's sad, but he's a spent force.

Why do you never point out "mediocre refereeing" when NZ lose ?

nottins wrote:Why do you never point out "mediocre refereeing" when NZ lose ?

I just did. Duh.

Totally agree on Mils, I'd have selected Dagg and looked to give Ben Smith a chance to prove himself more during WC after a superb S15. No idea why Toeava is in over Gear and Sivi, very average AB (look good in an England jersey though!)

Game of two halves and stronger team on the day deserved the win, from comments at golf yesterday quite a few Cantabs were hoping for an Oz win as supporting Robbie like me believe he should be NZ coach .

TheGreyGhost wrote:

I just did. Duh.

Oops.

Why do you never point out "mediocre refereeing" when NZ win ?

Yeah suddenly our wings look shades of what we can do.
No probs with the loss, ref, or othyerwise.

I loved it. A real hard bustemup much test match where Oz came and gave it to us. Equally a huge turnaround to show such composure and come back speaks volume for our resolve as well- to be able to change to a plan B so quickly and effectively.

All 3 3N teams can now go into the WCup with more than something to hang onto. I must admit I havnt watched much of the NH warmups but my recommendation is that 'Intensity' will be a presiding factor of this world cup. If you dont have it in matches against the 3N sides, expect to be down early, quickly.

Oz had it in spades first half to a level the ABs couldnt cope with, ABs beginning second half.

Can't wait for the 9 September...

And GG, what is it with you? Why is by far the predominant factor of any match the ref? Especially after NZ losses...sometimes for years?

Where do you think it gets you in the end? Barnes is still there after 4 years reffing NZ after all.

I enjoy some of your knowledgeable points but as soon as the ref word comes up its the same old thing...dragging biters through the sorry ref tales.

One thing youre right about is... Different week ...same old story...

Get off them for once and watch the other 30 odd on the field for a change..

Thank you, Taylorman.
An honest Kiwi who is willing to say that you had a bad day at the office but, hey, let's move on. Respect to you, fella. (Your attitude is the sort of thing I was talking about our Irish friends having in bucket-loads. Not that they ever have to show modesty in defeat against us and they always cuff us - the dirty, cheating, lying offside, scrum-collapsing, forward-passing, shirt-tugging ****'s!)

Annoyance transference. The more other folks get upset listening to me whinge. The less I care about it.

Goddard sure screwed up though.

Fair enough. At least you have a reason for it... it almost feels like some ref has done you personal harm in the past... like someone who tends to hate all cops when theyve come across some bad ones in their past...theyre out to...get them.

All good. Look forward to your comments during the cup... just try to be a little more tolerance with those little fullas with the whistles- they have to have a beer with someone after the match sometimes too...

Has any one noticed how referees never buy a beer?

Gosh the number of refs we used to snub over the years after matches. (Not that I played in a lot of losing ones mind you!)

But they do come into the club, showered with that innocent surveying the scene look of 'who's going to abuse me here, where can I hide, am I safe here kind of demeanour about them don't they? Thats if they come in at all. The match usually decides that part for them.

Must be tough alright- the only 'officially' neutral person in the entire place...

they have a couple of tactics.
If the home team's won they go in, sidle up to a committee member and after a while ask something like " So where do you get a beer rouend here?"
Which results in either:
1. Here have a couple of bar coupons.
OR
2.You can go over there to the bar (points), and buy a beer.In which case they go up to the bar,and tell the barmaid something like "Jack from the committe said you would get us a couple of beers."

TheGreyGhost wrote: funny thing is that nobody fell over after the "trip", so it can't have been a very good one.

Its true, every good rugby trip ends with someone falling over ...maybe through a galss table

How if "feck" swearing? They say it on father Ted for christs sake. On the BBC...before the water shed.

Please could you publish a list of words you consider to be "illegal"?

Or why not just add them to your swearing filter?

I suppose "feck" is acceptable,but "go feck yourself" and you are not <stiffmiddlefinger>

To be fair TGG, your aggressiveness and bitterness tend to draw alot of attention your way.

If you were a little more decent in accepting an AB loss, then i am sure that mods would'nt be attracted to your comments as much.

Yeah Mick, it was the nasty way he directed it at another member.

If you think we should all carry on in the same manner as you have - using abusive language to get a half-baked point across, then you are grossly mistaken.

We don't publish lists. Use your common sense TGG.