Harlequins v Leicester

First topic message reminder :

Last season this fixture was quite possibly the match of the season (except for Tom Croft) as Tigers came from behind to storm past Quins and gain revenge for the defeat at WR earlier in the season. Of course Quins were to have the last laugh. Sadly this season the match takes place during the 6Ns so both teams will be weakened. From past experience we can expect Stuart Lancaster to release players who have had limited game time back to their clubs - this should mean that Tigers will have Manu and Waldrom available - but perhaps more importantly Quins will be able to call on Danny Care who should help Nick Evans get out of his mid-season slump. Logo Mulipola took a serious whallop to the testicals at the weekend so Cockers may well decide to select Castro for this fixture. Croft played 75 minutes last week so as part of his re-introduction is due a week off, while Mafi is still struggling with his hamstring.

My expected Tigers line-up:

Ayerza, Hawkins, Castro, Deacon, Kitchener, Waldrom, Salvi, Crane
Harrison, Flood, Thompstone, Allen, Manu, Morris, Tait

Reps: Mulipola, Chuter, Balmain, Slater, Deacon, Young, Ford, Murphy.



oops forgot Flood will probably be made available as well.

AlastairW wrote:Great to hear LT

Glad you & yours had a great day out. That is easily the best atmosphere of the year so far; you could tell when you got in that it was going to be electric.

Good on DC for noticing, and sorting out your second daughter. To me that speaks volumes to his character.

It does and makes a nice change to hear it straight from fans as opposed the media who have hyped it up.

Nice to hear your daughter is up and about LT, hope she's recovering well. Good to hear the players were community minded and took the time to spend some time with your daughters.

It felt as if at times he was pinging us for something and not Quins

He looked unsure of himself throughout and changed his interpretation at the breakdowm every 5 minutes. Most the 50/50 stuff went Quins way other than the five or so mins after Hopper got pinged for blocking Smith. How Barnes is still a top level ref I dunno, we had a teenager ref my game yesterday that managed the game better than Barnes.

I think we can all agree that Barnes was poor, I just take a little bit of offense at the idea put forward by a couple on here that he was the sole downfall of Tigers or the only conduit for Quins to score points or that he was singling out Tigers on purpose (if you defend more you'll be pinged more).

To suggest a pro ref goes out to favour one side over another is foolish I agree. Tigers were as responsible for their downfall through foolish play but every Quins point was scored from a penalty a few of which you would be agreeved at had the shoe been on the other foot.

Still nice to get that particular monkey off our backs.

Just potentially one more show down with Tigers later in the year, fingers crossed it goes so well.

george doors wrote:I am away at the moment so missed this match. no Sky sports where I am. I read on this post winge after winge by Tigers fans about Wayne Barnes decisions. So I have been looking on line at independent match reports, Daily Telegraph to name just one, and do you know what, blow me down but not one mentioned anything about the refs performance, they all seem to say a great match with Quins coming out as deserving winners.

www.premiershiprugby.tv

Works anywhere as far as I know, I'm in Mumbai and watched the full match when I woke up this morning

yappysnap wrote:Still nice to get that particular monkey off our backs.

Just potentially one more show down with Tigers later in the year, fingers crossed it goes so well.

Two more matches would be good

Well we'd have to do Clermont in France to get to the second so let's not rush things

Clermont aren't that good are they...

yappysnap wrote:Clermont aren't that good are they...

Well, their players cannot even get into the French team and whe have see how good they are

That's because they haven't been using Clermont's players though...

nathan wrote:

george doors wrote:I am away at the moment so missed this match. no Sky sports where I am. I read on this post winge after winge by Tigers fans about Wayne Barnes decisions. So I have been looking on line at independent match reports, Daily Telegraph to name just one, and do you know what, blow me down but not one mentioned anything about the refs performance, they all seem to say a great match with Quins coming out as deserving winners.

What's your point? They don't usually report on the ref. Barnes was pretty bad for both teams.

My point is very simple to understand , it is:
I am away at the moment so missed this match. no Sky sports where I am. I read on this post winge after winge by Tigers fans about Wayne Barnes decisions. So I have been looking on line at independent match reports, Daily Telegraph to name just one, and do you know what, blow me down but not one mentioned anything about the refs performance, they all seem to say a great match with Quins coming out as deserving winners.

That looks like it was mainly a drunk Nathan, moaning as the match was in progress. He does mention a poor decision in Quins favour, but he is not likely to mention many is he?


I still feel that Barnes was horribly inconsistent at scrum and breakdown. He looked like the reffing equivalent of rhys Priestland (before his injury) - desperately low on confidence, low on form and looking as if he wanted to be anywhere else other than out in the middle.

As a tigers fan I felt we were hard done by on a number of occasions. If I were a Quins fan I would be wondering how many times the opposition could infringe and not get a YC.

He was poor for both sides.

Just worse for us of course.

I guess Cockerill was drinking too, hes complained formally about the reffing in the game.

Peter Seabiscuit Wheeler wrote:I guess Cockerill was drinking too, hes complained formally about the reffing in the game.

He almost had to really after the things he said to the press. I suspect though, after the final warnings Cockers and COS got earlier in the season, that we may see him up before the beak himself.

george doors wrote:

nathan wrote:

george doors wrote:I am away at the moment so missed this match. no Sky sports where I am. I read on this post winge after winge by Tigers fans about Wayne Barnes decisions. So I have been looking on line at independent match reports, Daily Telegraph to name just one, and do you know what, blow me down but not one mentioned anything about the refs performance, they all seem to say a great match with Quins coming out as deserving winners.

What's your point? They don't usually report on the ref. Barnes was pretty bad for both teams.

My point is very simple to understand , it is:
I am away at the moment so missed this match. no Sky sports where I am. I read on this post winge after winge by Tigers fans about Wayne Barnes decisions. So I have been looking on line at independent match reports, Daily Telegraph to name just one, and do you know what, blow me down but not one mentioned anything about the refs performance, they all seem to say a great match with Quins coming out as deserving winners.

Well to be honest, it was pretty much only me moaing about the ref, i was a little drunk and it was a very nervy match that i got caught up in. You'll also notice i moaned about decisions that went for us too. You will also read that i did say sorry for my rantings and explained the reasons why.

Still, you won't find many reports that ever talk about the ref in a bad light. So how about giving it a rest?

nathan wrote:

george doors wrote:

nathan wrote:

george doors wrote:I am away at the moment so missed this match. no Sky sports where I am. I read on this post winge after winge by Tigers fans about Wayne Barnes decisions. So I have been looking on line at independent match reports, Daily Telegraph to name just one, and do you know what, blow me down but not one mentioned anything about the refs performance, they all seem to say a great match with Quins coming out as deserving winners.

What's your point? They don't usually report on the ref. Barnes was pretty bad for both teams.

My point is very simple to understand , it is:
I am away at the moment so missed this match. no Sky sports where I am. I read on this post winge after winge by Tigers fans about Wayne Barnes decisions. So I have been looking on line at independent match reports, Daily Telegraph to name just one, and do you know what, blow me down but not one mentioned anything about the refs performance, they all seem to say a great match with Quins coming out as deserving winners.

Well to be honest, it was pretty much only me moaing about the ref, i was a little drunk and it was a very nervy match that i got caught up in. You'll also notice i moaned about decisions that went for us too. You will also read that i did say sorry for my rantings and explained the reasons why.

Still, you won't find many reports that ever talk about the ref in a bad light. So how about giving it a rest?

No need for that mate.

I think we can all understand the posts above but to a neutral it is a lengthy, painful and very one sided diatribe to work through, especially if you came on to the thread to get score updates and actually only got Wayne Barnes anti-Tigers updates

Cockerill has gone down the formal route, I suggest we leave it at that and see what happens. Hopefully rather then shutting shop and getting defensive the referees association will come out with a statement and/or action from this.

I'd like the refs association to make a clear statement about what they expect at the breakdown so we get consistentcy week in week out. Only then will the Cockerill's, Ventner's and O'Shea's of the world be satisfied and not so chuntering in the face of the media.

I'm sure they've already done that. But the way the breakdown is at the moment, especially when two top teams are involved and both are both trying to get away with as much as possible there will mean refs are always fighting a losing battle.

I can only see three options really:

1. Loosen up the rules and allow a heck of a lot more in attack and defence and just hope that the teams can ref it themselves. The ref only gets involved for offside and dangerous play. E.G defenders must enter through the back of the ruck but can lay, handle to their hearts content. Attackers must enter through the gate but can seal off etc may or may not work...

2. Clamp down massively on any naughty play, get refs to ping any and all naughty play and hope to scare the players in to abiding by the rules.

3. Force all players to actually stand and bind on to each other, no hands on the ball except scrummy and/or specific other players, everyone else basically makes an impromptu scrummage and contests the ball with their feet and combined weight/willpower.