Steve Walsh handed 6N finale again

First topic message reminder :

On form, the six nations will be a call between unbeaten France and Ireland. The "grand final" will be the last match played and similarly to last years climax between England and Wales, Steve Walsh has been handed the honours.

Surely this is yet a further underlining of the man's status as possibly the finest referee in the world and a continuation of the upward trend in his professional career after his well documented personal issues.

Congratulations Mr Walsh! A truly inspiring tale of personal strength and success - a role model for many no doubt!

GloriousEmpire wrote:I think English fans in general are tarnished against Walsh due to the British media campaign against him, originating during the 2003 RWC incident.

In that episode Walsh was initially bang to rights as England ignored match protocols to sneak on a 16th man. England were arrogant and thought they were more important than the laws of the game, ignoring Walsh as an official. He took offence and over-reacted. It's a shame he did so, because his behaviour allowed England to divert attention from their bully-boy behaviour on that occasion and allowed their media to paint Walsh as "anti-English" when in fact he was more "pro-rugby" and "pro-regulations".

 He should merely have flagged and waited patiently and then let the referee know the exact point in time that England broke the laws - which would have involved the game being brought back for a penalty to samoa - probably costing England a 10 point difference in a close-ish game.

Now my bet is that calm behaviour would have set the British media on their own team's back rather than walsh's.

A lesson he has no doubt learned.

GE and his usual anger towards the English...

Walsh got bounced out of his own country and over to Australia. Even (we love a forward pass) NZ didn't want him.

englandglory4ever wrote:Walsh got bounced out of his own country and over to Australia. Even (we love a forward pass) NZ didn't want him.

Mate, I'm ignoring your continual provocative efforts to derail the thread by plugging you misguided "forward pass" nonsense. On Walsh - he was given a fair few chances the the NZRU and help with his personal issues.
In the end they lost patience, perhaps this was the push he needed to sort himself out. It speaks volume of his character that he got back on the horse, and global rugby should be grateful that the ARU gave him the vehicle to resuscitate his career.
I think a return via the NZRU would've been untenable given the circumstances.

I'm just happy to see the guy back out in the middle with a whistle - the game would be poorer for his absence.

At this rate it could be the wooden spoon decider

Huh? I'm not sure that's actually possible with Scotland still to play Italy and two wins apiece for Ireland, France.

Did you mean the England v Wales game?

GloriousEmpire wrote:Huh? I'm not sure that's actually possible with Scotland still to play Italy and two wins apiece for Ireland, France.

Did you mean the England v Wales game?

No the last game of season is Wales v Scotland and Walsh has that hasn't he?

bedfordwelsh wrote:

GloriousEmpire wrote:Huh? I'm not sure that's actually possible with Scotland still to play Italy and two wins apiece for Ireland, France.

Did you mean the England v Wales game?

No the last game of season is Wales v Scotland and Walsh has that hasn't he?

last game is ireland france.

http://www.irb.com/mm/document/newsmedia/mediazone/02/06/98/86/131206toc6nations2014appointmentskb.pdf

Looks like Mike Ross is in for a long night.

GE, it is indeed heartwarming that Walsh has overcome his personal issues, but that doesn't make him a good ref.

I have no axe to grind over 2003. Neither the original incident nor Walsh's reaction made much difference to anything.

I was perturbed by his refereeing of the dying seconds of England v Wales in 2012. Wales collapsed an English maul inside their own 5m line. First question mark: shouldn't that have been a penalty try right there? It's certainly reasonable to believe that a try might have been scored were it not for foul play. Walsh played on, indicating advantage. Strettle almost scores, but not quite. Question mark number two: Walsh had not indicated advantage over, and in the modern game a shot at scoring is not usually enough advantage, especially for an offence so close to the tryline. But fair enough. He's the ref, it's his judgement and he made his call.

What I really could not stomach was his refereeing of the scrum in Wales v England last year. Adam Jones clearly bound on the hem of the sleeve against both Marler and Vunipola at every scrum in which his bind was visible. This was not a marginally illegal bind like binding on the armpit, it was as far from legal as you could possibly get without actually binding on bare flesh. You could probably have spotted it from Google Earth if the roof had been open. This allowed Jones to yank their bind loose at scrum after scrum. The constant string of penalties may or may not have changed the outcome; it certainly ended the match as a contest.

Neither Walsh nor his ARs ever spotted something that was completely blatant. What bothers me most is that they never even looked for it. For me, top level rugby is a game of very fine margins and if one team constantly appears to be forcing penalties from the other, a good ref should be asking himself what they are doing to get that edge, and whether it's legal.

To compound the issue, Walsh was seemingly happy to chat at length to Warburton and other Welsh players, but barely gave Robshaw the time of day even when he was asking for clarification (which as captain, he's entitled to do). Again, I would expect a top level referee to spend more time with the team on the receiving end of his whistle to give them the best opportunity to correct what he doesn't like and let the game flow. Walsh isn't the only one who doesn't do this (Wayne Barnes isn't great at it), but given his history with England, if I were Walsh I would be looking to be especially communicative when refereeing England, precisely to avoid any accusations of bias, and he doesn't do this.

So Walsh had a bet on, what could he do? His hands were tied.

"I was perturbed by his refereeing of the dying seconds of England v Wales in 2012. Wales collapsed an English maul inside their own 5m line. First question mark: shouldn't that have been a penalty try right there? It's certainly reasonable to believe that a try might have been scored were it not for foul play. Walsh played on, indicating advantage. Strettle almost scores, but not quite. Question mark number two: Walsh had not indicated advantage over, and in the modern game a shot at scoring is not usually enough advantage, especially for an offence so close to the tryline. But fair enough. He's the ref, it's his judgement and he made his call."

A try "might have been scored" is not the criteria - so Walsh was correct not to award one.

Sounds more like your team lost and you want to blame the ref, instead of the players.

The advantage law states:

"(a)
The referee is sole judge of whether or not a team has gained an advantage. The referee has wide discretion when making decisions."

There is no such law that states a referee must indicate advantage over.

Walsh 2 - you 0

Vunipola bores in blatantly during every scrum - which you can see from the moon - do I have little sympathy for your binding issue.

Walsh 3 - you 0

Lastly, referees tend to "have more time" for players who have been courteous, if England lack referee relationship skills don't blame the referee! Warburton managed it, England need to learn and not just throw tantrums.

Walsh 4 - you 0

GloriousEmpire wrote:
Sounds more like your team lost and you want to blame the ref, instead of the players.

<cough>InZid v France 2007 1/4 final.... </cough>

GloriousEmpire wrote:"I was perturbed by his refereeing of the dying seconds of England v Wales in 2012. Wales collapsed an English maul inside their own 5m line. First question mark: shouldn't that have been a penalty try right there? It's certainly reasonable to believe that a try might have been scored were it not for foul play. Walsh played on, indicating advantage. Strettle almost scores, but not quite. Question mark number two: Walsh had not indicated advantage over, and in the modern game a shot at scoring is not usually enough advantage, especially for an offence so close to the tryline. But fair enough. He's the ref, it's his judgement and he made his call."

A try "might have been scored" is not the criteria - so Walsh was correct not to award one.

Sounds more like your team lost and you want to blame the ref, instead of the players.

Fine, I typed the wrong word in my effort to be reasoned. I did also say that I accepted it was his call. But are you seriously telling me that a rolling maul pulled down within sight of the tryline should not be a candidate for a penalty try? There are a lot of people on here who'd disagree with you, regardless of which team was involved.

And if we're being picky, the singular of criteria is criterion. See, I can win pedant points, too.

I notice you haven't commented on his refereeing of the scrum.

EDIT: Apologies, I see you modified your post while I was responding.

a) I didn't say Walsh was wrong not to award a penalty try. As we both acknowledge it's his call. But I believe many referees would have given it.
b) There is indeed no law to say when advantage is over or requirement for the referee to indicate it. As a qualified referee, I am well aware of that. But I said that I felt the advantage he allowed was unusually short by modern standards. It would also have been good refereeing practice to indicate that advantage was over
c) Vunipola is certainly boring in this year and I am surprised he hasn't been pinged for it. But we're not talking about this year or about other referees oreven Vunipola boring in. Vunipola wasn't boring in last year for the simple reason that he was being pinged for collapsing the scrum because of the opposing TH's illegal bind. There is a lot for a ref to do when refereeing the scrum, but the sequence of what you need to check is both important andd straightforward. Bind and engagement first, then stability, then a straight put in, then you can worry about boring, wheeling and popping up.
d) What's your evidence that the entire Welsh team was more courteous than the English captain?

classic ghost. You couldn't make it up..

Poorfour wrote:

GloriousEmpire wrote:"I was perturbed by his refereeing of the dying seconds of England v Wales in 2012. Wales collapsed an English maul inside their own 5m line. First question mark: shouldn't that have been a penalty try right there? It's certainly reasonable to believe that a try might have been scored were it not for foul play. Walsh played on, indicating advantage. Strettle almost scores, but not quite. Question mark number two: Walsh had not indicated advantage over, and in the modern game a shot at scoring is not usually enough advantage, especially for an offence so close to the tryline. But fair enough. He's the ref, it's his judgement and he made his call."

A try "might have been scored" is not the criteria - so Walsh was correct not to award one.

Sounds more like your team lost and you want to blame the ref, instead of the players.

Fine, I typed the wrong word in my effort to be reasoned. I did also say that I accepted it was his call. But are you seriously telling me that a rolling maul pulled down within sight of the tryline should not be a candidate for a penalty try? There are a lot of people on here who'd disagree with you, regardless of which team was involved.

And if we're being picky, the singular of criteria is criterion. See, I can win pedant points, too.

I notice you haven't commented on his refereeing of the scrum.

I wasn't nit picking. There's a huge difference between "might"
And "probably would". In the case given I agree a try might have been scored, but I don't agree a try probably would have been scored.

I did comment on the scrum. I said vunipola bores in on every scrum. Suspect Walsh spotted it and correctly penalised him. I'm amazed you can see fine detail like the bind position but not Vunipolas giant step out and twist in every scrum.

Now - having debunked every single one of your complaints by merely stating the applicable law and demonstrating Walsh was correct, perhaps you might admit he's quite a good referee?

GloriousEmpire wrote:Now - having debunked every single one of your complaints by merely stating the applicable law and demonstrating Walsh was correct, perhaps you might admit he's quite a good referee?

You've debunked nothing. You've merely demonstrated a lack of sympathy for the game of which Mr Walsh would seemingly be proud.

I was taught that a good referee works with the players from both sides to help the game to flow, and that a good referee should try not to be the centre of attention. If Walsh is even trying to do either of those things, he is definitely not achieving them.

But you didn't want the game to flow, you wanted penalties for england instead of for Wales and a penalty try for England when one wasn't warranted.

Walsh made the game flow by offering England an advantage -
From which they failed to score.

I don't see the problem as being Walsh here.

GloriousEmpire wrote:But you didn't want the game to flow, you wanted penalties for england instead of for Wales and a penalty try for England when one wasn't warranted.

Walsh made the game flow by offering England an advantage -
From which they failed to score.

I don't see the problem as being Walsh here.

Nope, your the problem.

Oh dear, GE loves a ref like Walsh who clearly is poor. No doubt he sees backwards throws when Nz do it. Even though the ball travels forward by just enough not to actually call it forward. GE does make me laugh.

Steve Walsh is a hero.

GloriousEmpire wrote:But you didn't want the game to flow, you wanted penalties for england instead of for Wales and a penalty try for England when one wasn't warranted.

Walsh made the game flow by offering England an advantage -
From which they failed to score.

I don't see the problem as being Walsh here.

There's little point arguing with you when you're in this mood, which is shame because when you actually analyse the game rather than cleave to one point of view, I find you quite insightful. But here goes anyway.

First and foremost, I want to see infringements correctly dealt with and in the appropriate sequence. By failing to notice that Jones was binding illegally, Walsh ensured that the scrum would descend into a string of penalties. It's almost impossible for a LH to make any kind of bind with 20 stone of TH levering his elbow down. The dropped bind was indeed a penalty offence, but the root cause was an earlier penalty offence from the other team, Had he or his ARs spotted the binding issue early and penalised it consistently, one of two things would have happened: Jones would have stopped, and we might have had a scrum contest, or Walsh would have issued a yellow card. Either way, we'd likely have had more of a flowing game once the issue had been dealt with.

In the case of the earlier game, advantage is about allowing the game to flow, but it's also incumbent on the refereee to deicde whether any advantage has accrued. If the maul had gone down on the 22, then a chance of a try would be a reasonable advantage. Given it went down while moving forwards only yards from the tryline, I feel that Walsh was out of line with how most current referees would have handled the situation. I've seen several cases recently where longer advantage has been given just for knock-ons (not that I am condoning that). But as I have repeatedly said, it was his call and it's at least justifiable.

You seem adamant that jones was deliberating trying to ensure the scrum collapsed, but from what I've seen, Adam jones is a useful scrummager and the welsh scrum got on top of England.

Is it not just slightly possible that you are just a wee bit biased here? Just slightly possible that perhaps Wales were dominating, vunipola was boring and England were going down and Walsh was correct? Will you at least entertain that the scrum fault might not have been welsh?

Perhaps you can post a video clip of some of the contentious scrums so we can work from fact and not cloudy memories?

GloriousEmpire wrote:You seem adamant that jones was deliberating trying to ensure the scrum collapsed, but from what I've seen, Adam jones is a useful scrummager and the welsh scrum got on top of England.

Is it not just slightly possible that you are just a wee bit biased here? Just slightly possible that perhaps Wales were dominating, vunipola was boring and England were going down and Walsh was correct? Will you at least entertain that the scrum fault might not have been welsh?

Perhaps you can post a video clip of some of the contentious scrums so we can work from fact and not cloudy memories?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nF5KXo3_5z4

All the scrums from the said game.... only 13 minutes or so of playing time....

ebop wrote:You guys sure are a little over-sensitive about your precious Welsh ref.

Hahahaha and you kiwis are never sensitive are you  

Who knows may we end up as sensitive the Welsh  

blackcanelion wrote:

GloriousEmpire wrote:You seem adamant that jones was deliberating trying to ensure the scrum collapsed, but from what I've seen, Adam jones is a useful scrummager and the welsh scrum got on top of England.

Is it not just slightly possible that you are just a wee bit biased here? Just slightly possible that perhaps Wales were dominating, vunipola was boring and England were going down and Walsh was correct? Will you at least entertain that the scrum fault might not have been welsh?

Perhaps you can post a video clip of some of the contentious scrums so we can work from fact and not cloudy memories?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nF5KXo3_5z4

Looks to me like Walsh called reasonably fairly to me. It's impossible to see what's going on with Adam jones' bind in the first half scrums because the footage is from the wrong side of the pitch, but it is clear that the English front row came off second best - marler was utterly destroyed and subbed at around 45 minutes.

As soon as vunipola appears jones points out his angle to Walsh and Walsh seems to agree. Im sorry but vunipola always bores in and for some reason a lot of nh refs are ignoring it.

As far as binding goes you can see Jenkins slips a few in the first half (hard to see later because of angles) but this was a common occurrence before the engagement was changed, I find it hard to believe that he can be accused of bringing down the opposite side of the scrum or pulling vunipola across because he hasn't quite got the bind very time.

Is there a particular scrum you have issue with? To be honest even the one eyes scrum monster Brian Moore seems to believe most of the calls are right.

Looks like Walsh did a pretty good job and got frustrated by a beaten English scrum. Having the weaker scrum penalised consistently on reputation as the game goes on is quite common - look how harshly Australia are treated on reputation at twickenham, even when the fault is more with Vunipolas illegal boring in.

Walsh got duped on the day it happens. There're worse refs, there're better refs. He's got great hair though. Fair dinkum Aussie.

Walsh is a very bad ref. He is known the world over for being someone who for whatever reason allows bias to get the better of him. He has years of previous bad form. GE loves him. Says something about him.

http://www.therugbysite.com/blog/news-opinions/england-s-fate-should-not-be-in-steve-walsh-s-hands

englandglory4ever wrote:Walsh is a very bad ref. He is known the world over for being someone who for whatever reason allows bias to get the better of him. He has years of previous bad form. GE loves him. Says something about him.

http://www.therugbysite.com/blog/news-opinions/england-s-fate-should-not-be-in-steve-walsh-s-hands

Not sure I'd ever use Mark Reason as evidence. It's self defeating.

I just did. I think what he says is true.

englandglory4ever wrote:I just did. I think what he says is true.

No doubt. However, he's a Stephen Jones equivalent. He's a former writer for the Telegraph, and a son of a well known English rugby writer from the 70's. IMO his articles are predicable, long on opinion and short on quality research. Most people I know who have read him, switch off when they see his name.

If you don't like the message attack the messenger. It's the first rule of politics.

(Mostly) interesting stuff. I remember from the dim and distant days when I played that one of the easiest ways for a ref to 'influence' a result if he so chose was by using advantage

englandglory4ever wrote:If you don't like the message attack the messenger. It's the first rule of politics.

Just trying to help you out.  

blackcanelion wrote:Who knows may we end up as sensitive the Welsh  

We can be as sensitive as anybody, on our day.

Nobody can actually provide a single case where Walsh has made an incorrect decision. It's more about personality as far as I can tell. Proof of the pudding is that he is consistently handed the top games - England v Wales finale last year and Ireland v France this year. Speaks volumes that those with knowledge and power respect him in the IRB.

Frankly eg4ever after your inability to grasp the forward pass rule, I don't give your opinions on refereeing much credence.

Mark reason is a bitter daddy's boy.

Walsh is like Marmite.


He stinks.

You've done well to get 2 pages out of a pretty obvious wum though GE. Back on fire.

Good refereeing (in my book) is like good stage-lighting. If it is done properly people hardly notice it.

Walsh seems to want to be noticed. Ergo - he is not a good referee.

nobbled wrote:Good refereeing (in my book) is like good stage-lighting. If it is done properly people hardly notice it.

Walsh seems to want to be noticed. Ergo - he is not a good referee.

I suggest that's a straw man argument.

E.g.

Good refereeing is like a good pint of lager. Smooth and tall with a crisp bite and a cool finish. Owens is not like that, therefore he is a bad referee.

Good refereeing is like a good lawn. Craig Joubert is not a luxurious green Mat of organic fibres, therefore he is a bad referee.

GloriousEmpire wrote:

nobbled wrote:Good refereeing (in my book) is like good stage-lighting. If it is done properly people hardly notice it.

Walsh seems to want to be noticed. Ergo - he is not a good referee.

I suggest that's a straw man argument.

E.g.

Good refereeing is like a good pint of lager. Smooth and tall with a crisp bite and a cool finish. Owens is not like that, therefore he is a bad referee.

Good refereeing is like a good lawn. Craig Joubert is not a luxurious green Mat of organic fibres, therefore he is a bad referee.

I do not think so. It is arguably about personal preference. I want to watch the rugby, not the referee. Some people are more interested in the minutae of regulations - and if that fulfills them, good for them   , however I prefer a game that we don't have to discuss the referee after.

Lager? Bleeurgh.

If Walsh is wonderful - and therefore been handed the "finale", he must also have done quite a lot wrong as he's also reffing the Italy-Scotland game...

nobbled wrote:If Walsh is wonderful - and therefore been handed the "finale", he must also have done quite a lot wrong as he's also reffing the Italy-Scotland game...

and running the line for Wales v England - he will be able to call vunipola boring in from the sideline!

GloriousEmpire wrote:

nobbled wrote:If Walsh is wonderful - and therefore been handed the "finale", he must also have done quite a lot wrong as he's also reffing the Italy-Scotland game...

and running the line for Wales v England - he will be able to call vunipola boring in from the sideline!

If he sees it he can call it!   

Hmm, not sure what the point of this post is


The top refs are all given matches throughout the 6 nations (and others), and it happens that Walsh has this match, which may or may not be a decider

Fair play he has got over his addictions, and he can have some good games, but I am a little bit wary when I hear his name, as it does seem he can be inconsistent -which to be fair is better than Barnes who is consistent but Rubbish

GloriousEmpire wrote:You seem adamant that jones was deliberating trying to ensure the scrum collapsed, but from what I've seen, Adam jones is a useful scrummager and the welsh scrum got on top of England.

Is it not just slightly possible that you are just a wee bit biased here? Just slightly possible that perhaps Wales were dominating, vunipola was boring and England were going down and Walsh was correct? Will you at least entertain that the scrum fault might not have been welsh?

Perhaps you can post a video clip of some of the contentious scrums so we can work from fact and not cloudy memories?

Jones himself came to the defence of Marler after the game and it was reported in several places that he had told Launchbury that he'd collapsed half a dozen scrums and got away with it.

So even the person Walsh was favouring with his penalties says that he got it wrong.

Sounds like an anecdote to me. Why wouldn't jones prefer marler on the pitch again? Politics, don't be so naive.

Poorfour wrote:

GloriousEmpire wrote:You seem adamant that jones was deliberating trying to ensure the scrum collapsed, but from what I've seen, Adam jones is a useful scrummager and the welsh scrum got on top of England.

Is it not just slightly possible that you are just a wee bit biased here? Just slightly possible that perhaps Wales were dominating, vunipola was boring and England were going down and Walsh was correct? Will you at least entertain that the scrum fault might not have been welsh?

Perhaps you can post a video clip of some of the contentious scrums so we can work from fact and not cloudy memories?

Jones himself came to the defence of Marler after the game and it was reported in several places that he had told Launchbury that he'd collapsed half a dozen scrums and got away with it.

So even the person Walsh was favouring with his penalties says that he got it wrong.

Just like David Strettle really really ground that ball in the previous years fixture .