Why does Gatland feel the need to publicise this?

First topic message reminder :

Warren Gatland asks for scrum "clarification"

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/rugby-union/2603990

I guess he wants to attempt to apply pressure on referees by leaking this sort of stuff to the media.

But it smacks of i) sour grapes (insofar as trying to create an excuse for mediocre scrummaging), and ii) yet more Gatland media/spin nonsense.

It really gets on my nerves when ANY coaches do this. They should switch to football if thats how they want to conduct their business.

Back to the original thread. I'm assuming he's raised the issues of penalties, because:

1: He want's to distract the media and public from wales last performance.
2: He wants to pressure the referee.
3: He is genuinely concerned by the rulings.

I suspect all of the above. Like some of the posters above, I don't like the continuous pressure some coaches put on refs. White (SA), Jones (Australia) and SCW (England) are others that come to mind in the last 10 years. Hart (NZ) wasn't great either.

Against that is a desire to understand the art of refereeing as refs apply it at international level. The only we seem to have much debate in media is when a coach speaks up. Bit a Trogan horse really.

In general terms here are some questions about Wales post world cup.

1: Why did they get so many players binned in the 2012 6 nations?
2: Why have they generally been penalised less than the opposition in the last 12 months (the 1st test against Japan being the exception)?

1 good question - over zealous ref'ing? Without looking at each one I couldn't say.
2 because they don't break the rules/laws as much?

Lancaster has come out and said they wan't to emulate Wale's last Six Nations. Its just bigging up the other team

I'm assuming Lancaster doesn't want us to beat England again though...

munkian wrote:Lancaster has come out and said they wan't to emulate Wale's last Six Nations. Its just bigging up the other team

I'm assuming Lancaster doesn't want us to beat England again though...

I'm sure he means start with a loss but get better as they go along and take the Championship. It seems the sexiest way to win a Championship these days. First day loss is the New Black.

slartibartfast wrote:1 good question - over zealous ref'ing? Without looking at each one I couldn't say.
2 because they don't break the rules/laws as much?

i think you could have simply said...

Wales are awesome and can do no wrong

Bit rich this isn't it, seeing as after England's thrashing last year the English were crying about the exact same thing. 30-3 lads, lap it up.

only thing worse than a bad loser is a bad winner

quinsforever wrote:only thing worse than a bad loser is a bad winner

It's not, you lot are awful at losing

munkian wrote:

quinsforever wrote:only thing worse than a bad loser is a bad winner

It's not, you lot are awful at losing

That's not fair, some English posters are pretty decent in defeat, but us lot are awful at winning. But that said I would rather win, and be bad at it, than lose and be good at it.   

i thought that almost without exception the english posters here were very good on saturday when we choked to the french. self-critical of some of the decisions on substitutions, and positional shuffles, but i dont think there was any blaming of referee, scrum interpretation (where we did get pinged a lot but probably fairly), ball being slowed down etc. and generally positive comments about the england players and the match.

and not a single negative comment that i remember reading about the French team.

wonder if the same will be able to be said after your match this weekend?

Sorry, didn;t mean 'the board', meant real life.

munkian wrote:If anyone can name one half decent Irish ref I'll buy him a bag of Tayto crisps (standard size)

I am not telling lies here, my missus told me to go to Home Bargains to get some of those little bottles of Pepsi that come in a four pack and all vacume packed for my daughters packed lunch, when I was in there I could not believe my eyes when I saw, I think it was 36packs of Tayto's crisps for something like £2.50. I did not even know bargains like that existed, because this was the first time I have seen this particular brand, but I have heard the Irish posters on here talking about them I thought I would give them a whirl, I got them home and typically my wife and daughters instantly turned their noses up at them as they were not their favoured Walkers brand, but I kid you not, after tasting them, especially the pickled onion flavour, my daughters now make a point of asking me when I am passing to stock up on Tayto's crisps, they are friggin lush boi bach...........

Walkers are insipid mass produced compressed sawdust in comparison to Tayto!

Now, that's my Advert done - where's the fee Tayto??!!!!!  Hand it over!

SecretFly wrote:Walkers are insipid mass produced compressed sawdust in comparison to Tayto!

Now, that's my Advert done - where's the fee Tayto??!!!!!  Hand it over!

I call for all my Welsh brethren to open your world to the very delicious crisps that are Tayto's.

Your cheque is gonna be a big one after all that, Lord!

SecretFly wrote:Your cheque is gonna be a big one after all that, Lord!

I do not care about the money, people deserve to at least once in their life time to whitness the full flavour of these crisps, I am not lying when I say they are nice, especially when I thought they would be cheap and nasty, but the thing is, they are just cheap, but very nice crisps, and you get the warm feeling of having a bargain at the same time.

Ah but are they the northern Tayto.com crisps or the southern Taytocrisps.ie - both brands called the same name but totally different manufacturers (and flavours)?

The Great Aukster wrote:Ah but are they the northern Tayto.com crisps or the southern Taytocrisps.ie - both brands called the same name but totally different manufacturers (and flavours)?

Yeah..always found that to be a very strange one...they both even have roughly the same character...but no (alleged) relationship business-wise.