The fend

First topic message reminder :

During the Wales vs springbok game there was a fend from Bismarck du Plessis on Liam Williams.

Habana has just received the ball within his 22, saw Hibbard on his outside, ran around him, fended of North and outpaced him, ran 60 meters down field, then pass inside to Bismarck du Plessis.

This is what happened next. Bismarck ran straight at Liam Williams, Williams went down low to presumably take Bismarck's legs, but instead of bringing his head down and out of the way to effect the tackle, he went down but kept his head up and into the tackle, rather than out of harms way.

Bismarck then put his fore arm out to fend Williams off, Williams were so low that Bismarck's fore arm barely managed to make contact with Williams via his fore arm as he was so low, but the momentum of the bulldozing un hit Williams and he went sprawling backwards and his head hit the turf rather hard, hence him going off with suspected concussion. He never returned to the field.

Now some suggests that it was an illegal fend. Others say it was nothing, it was a normal bulldozing run where the defender used the wrong technique.

NOw I know when it comes to Bismarck everyone is only looking at his fend on Messam and therefor anytime he fends a player it is seen as a deliberate attempt to injure a defender. so he rarely gets the benefit of the doubt.

Now when it comes to the legality of the fend I want to discuss the following aspects of the fend.

Fends are used by players all the time, there is the hand, the palm, the forearm and then of course the elbow which is seen as illegal as you may not fend with a leading elbow.

Usually the fend is aimed at the chest area as that is the most effective manner of stopping the momentum of the would be tackler. sometimes the aim is off or the defender goes too low or turns or whatever which causes the fend to hit the face, neck or other areas of the defender.

At times if mistimed, it can also completely miss the defender, or if poorly timed the elbow can hit the defender before the fore arm fend is executed.

NOw some suggested that the fend should be banned completely, in other words you may not fend with the fore arm, but I believe if you are going to ban the fend, you need to ban the fend completely, be it with the hand, the palm, the fore arm, as anyone of those can be executed poorly and cause injury.

Ask any martial arts expert and he will tell you that the palm fend is as dangerous as the elbow, you can generate more force with hitting a player on the chest or any other area as you can with an elbow, granted the elbow is harder and sharper, but not more dangerous than the palm.

I believe the injury to Liam Williams was de to the fact that his execution of the technique he used on Bismarck caused his concussion and not the fend from Bismarck

gregortree wrote:

BigTrevsbigmac wrote:I thought Rolland did a good job actually. Apart from the Louewe yellow which was a nonsense.

The 2 props were warned in advance & continued to collapse so no problems there & I think Liam Williams will look back on that 'tackle' and learn from it.

Rolland lost patience.
So he put the 2 packs on the uncontested naughty step for 10 minutes to think things over.
As a neutral.. I though that was a cool touch.

I am happy withe the decision. Seems a decent call. Saw it happen in a glasgow game I think as well.

I didn't see it as a dirty game. Nothing in Williams tackle that I saw. The Loew yellow would not have been given without slow mo - but he was stupid to be drawn into it. Too easy to go back to the replay when it always looks worse and it will clean the game up inthe long run doing this.

I thought the ref did well overall - and he had to do something with both sides Wee weeing around at the scrums

I agree there TJ. Nothing bad at all. Ref did well. I actually felt a bit sorry for the SA prop who got carded as he had just come on and was the fall guy for his colleague who was warned along with Jenkins not long beforehand! In fact, maybe SA brought that guy on as the other one had been warned, but they still ended up losing the player anyway!

GloriousEmpire wrote:The Boks are all thugs. Frankly. The lot of them should be banned. Mid 2015 would be a good time for that to start happening.

 can we also ban the haka at about the same time?

I thought for that fend Bismarck actually made contact with him open palm on Williams neck/collar and pushed him down. Didn't see anything untoward in it at all

Mr Fishpaste wrote:Perhaps this is the difference between SA and Wales: this attitude displayed above. Certainly when I was learning to play rugby in SA the coaches always used to say: when you tackle or take the ball into contact, make sure they feel it (ie. make sure it hurts!) so that they'll think twice about taking you on next time! And in my opinion there's nothing wrong with that attitude on the rugby field...the flip side of it was of course: if you get hurt, don't whinge and whine about it.  I suspect, watching some footage of rugby from yester-year, that this would have been an attitude shared by the likes of JPR Williams etc (case in point: watch him run the length of the field to join in the fighting at the 'Battle of Boet Erasmus' - Lions Tour 1974).  So perhaps it is that kind of attitude that the Welsh are missing these days.

Thats kind of the point i'm making, this welsh team is very talented, extremely professional and have some world class players, but they can't seem to dog out a win against the SH teams, including Samoa and Argentina of last year. Their abilities as players and a team is unquestionable, I honestly beleive the Wales pack more than matched the SA pack on the weekend, but they lack a certain tough edge in all areas. They don't seem to rattle teams, players like others do, what SA and NZ do regularly is on the line of illegal, and often crosses over, but the yellow cards and penalties aren't translating into victories for the Welsh. I'm bored of hearing the Welsh see themselves as victims, Hores elbow, Du Plessis elbow etcetc if you can't beat them join them, take your yellow cards accordingly and show the opposition you won't take cheap shots lying down!

Griff wrote:Mr Fishpaste, the poster above is Scottish not Welsh.

I'm not seeing much whinging here. Just discussion. That's the point of the forum. Don't forget the person who started this thread in the first place is South African (Biltong). Some people have pointed out that a forearm is illegal, and have quoted the rules. Others have discussed it. But as soon as we discuss anything on this forum people like you come wading in talking about crying and whinging. It's good debate. Let it happen. Don't try to stop it by calling people cry babies.

Griff: perhaps I should clarify. I wasn't stating that people on this thread are whingers. My point was more that the attitude to rugby that I was brought up with was to dish out as much as you can and be prepared to take it in return from your opposition: 'ask no quarter give no quarter' if you will. I was then musing about whether it is perhaps this kind of attitude that is missing in Welsh rugby today (if you've got good players with good coaches, as Wales do have, then perhaps the problem is more of an attitude problem) I was also pointing out that as well as the skill and talent of the great Welsh generation of the 70's perhaps they also differed in attitude from today's team. Again, these are just musings, because I have not been brought up in the ways of Welsh rugby, so I can't make a definitive statement here. Anyways, that's what I was meaning to say when I came wading in here...

i don't remember anything wrong with bismarks fend, Louw I thought was stupid and did warrant a yellow, I mean come on we all hold on to players at rucks and the fact Louw used his forearm multiple times is why I think it deserves a yellow.

the two yellow's for the props I thought was completely stupid as surely if one of them goes down then the other prop cant help it, it should have been a yellow to the prop who was bringing the scrum down. I think that showed the Rolland didn't have a clue at what was going on in the scrum and simply lost his patience, and as a result punished one team unfairly and caused a few other problems!

trying to suggest Hore's sucker punch and Bismarcks raised elbow are in the same ballpark is a bit off.

If it was so bad then why wasn't it cited?

Wales are not a squeeky clean team but if they think SH teams are going to lie down and take it then they are very mistaken. Rugby is a man's game.

Trying to kid themselves that they won the breakdown, the physicality, that others cheated etc etc simply deflects their actual issues and prevents them from actually winning one of these games.
Any neutral who watched the game would have seen one thing... the SA were the better side, they took their chances, they looked very comfortable throughout and were happy for Wales to keep the ball and go absolutely nowhere throughtout the game.

Fa, if you read back over the myriad comments and threads on the game I think you'll be hard pressed to find ANY welsh fan who said we won the breakdown battle or the physicality - so where are we 'kidding ourselves'? No-one to my memory has said that Wales were the better team, so not just neutrals hold that view (your last sentence).

Louw's retaliation cost a yellow. The fact Rolland gave it suggests that the player did something wrong (in his eyes, and/or the touch judge who called it). Bismarck I don't think did anything wrong, but your fellow SA fan started a thread on it as it is an interesting discussion point as there is actually a rugby law about the use of the arm. Again, I'm not sure that anyone has said that Bismark's arm cost us the game. I think you're putting words into people's mouths (keyboards!).

Griff

If you read the posts on the SA vs. Wales match blog and the Scotland vs. SA match blog you will see many discussions this morning stating that Wales were the top side from a breakdown and physicality point of view, seriously have a look. Its the game with Gatland's lame excuses too... it clouds the actual flaws and stops the team from reaching the next step... a step well within their potential. Try picking the right players, a flexible strategy and not simply playing the same game time and time again and hoping it will be enough against all-comers.

In terms of Louw I agree. What he did was handbags but it was wrong. A yellow was slightly harsh but you have to expect them these days for things such as thus and therefore it was the right decision.