European competitions Early April rounds

First topic message reminder :

Didn't see a thread for the early April games of the European tournaments so thought I'd start this one.  Champions Cup last 16 (2 legs) and last round of the Challenge Cup group stage.

Friday 15th April 2022

Champions Cup
Leinster v Connacht- 17:30
Bristol v Sale- 20:00

Challenge Cup

Biarritz Olympique v Wasps- 17:30
London Irish v Castres- 17:30
Lyon v Worcester Warriors- 20:00
Newcastle Falcons v Glasgow Warriors- 20:00

Saturday 16th April 2022

Champions Cup
Harlequins v Montpellier- 12:30
La Rochelle v Bordeaux Bègles- 15:00
Munster v Exeter Chiefs- 15:00
Leicester Tigers v ASM Clermont Auvergne- 17:30
Ulster v Toulouse- 20:00

Challenge Cup
Edinburgh v Bath- 20:00
Gloucester v Northampton Saints- 20:00
Toulon v Benetton- 20:00

Sunday 17th April 2022

Saracens v Cardiff- 13:00- Challenge Cup

Racing 92 v Stade Francais- 15:30- Champions Cup

formerly known as Sam wrote:

No 7&1/2 wrote:

formerly known as Sam wrote:

No 7&1/2 wrote:So acknowledging that everything is down to interpretation what would you say is the mitigation for Chessum and Porter?

Porter's was one of those 50/50 type things. He doesn't see Fritz Lee, apparently the sun was an issue in the second half for Tigers in that game. Clearly an accident so was going to be seen either as a rugby incident or a reckless challenge. Once the ref came down on reckless challenge he was always likely to get a ban. Touch harsh with the red but fair play to the ref he took his time and came out with good rationale for his decision.

Chessum's red card was given on the back of the TMO saying shoulder direct contact to head after little review time. Not only was that blatantly not the case the ref didn't go to either of the large screens at Welford Road to look for himself. Chessum's shoulder hits arm and shoulder before glancing up and onto the head. Like we often see it's the slight dip of the shoulder by the attacker that allows the shoulder to slip up but as a defender you should be anticipating that. The level of force was pretty minimal given the Clermont player's head isn't bounced about and he doesn't require a TMO, after Gibson-Park left his opposite number with a face like the Elephant Man and that was low force there's an argument there as well. I fully expect Tigers to accept the charge and then try to argue it down to yellow which means it they don't argue it down then he'll get max dispensation.

From your summary of Porter agree completely. Reckless so a red card.

Given Chessums run up not sure how anyone could say the force want there with a straight face.

Did you see the Gibson-Park incident and the state of the Connacht scrum Half's face afterwards? That was deemed low impact though the ref was Dickson who is at best incompetent but the citing panel ruled it only a yellow card. If that's deemed low impact then I'd suggest you could argue most tackles are.

But you've seen my comments that it should have been a red card.

Feels a bit stupid but not commented in the best moment of the weekend. The Danny Care Marcus Smith show for the length of the field try. What a score that was for Marchant. Murley did the simple right thing of making sure he didn't take the space as well and gave the ball at the righ lt time. Great all round.

No 7&1/2 wrote:Feels a bit stupid but not commented in the best moment of the weekend. The Danny Care Marcus Smith show for the length of the field try. What a score that was for Marchant. Murley did the simple right thing of making sure he didn't take the space as well and gave the ball at the righ lt time. Great all round.

It was sensational. Montpellier ambled up and as soon as Care kept the kick in Quins were off at the races, exploiting the space perfectly. It might just edge past Tigers try from a similar distance out off the scrum where Youngs bought and sold Parra with a dummy and set Potter off on a mazy run for the try if the weekend.

The level of force is assessed based on what the tackler is doing and not on the total force of the collision. That’s explicit in the framework, which gives the example of a soak tackle as being lower force than an attempted dominant tackle.

The Gibson Park incident was deemed low force because Gibson Park was basically static at the time of the collision and not trying to go forward. It was still foul play because he hadn’t adjusted his height, but in terms of impact it looked a lot worse than it was because his opposite number was already being tackled and hit him nose first.

Overall, it was probably a lot less dangerous than a lot of head on head collisions, despite the blood. Noses break easily, but they’re essentially crumple zones for the head…

The Chessum incident is a pretty clear red. He’s moving at pace, hasn’t dipped, isn’t unsighted and makes direct shoulder contact with the head.

The only possible mitigation is that the first contact is Chessum’s chest on the tackled player’s shoulder - but referees generally interpret “direct” as meaning that the arm, shoulder or head of the tackler hits the tackled player’s head or neck without hitting something else first. “Indirect” usually means the offending body part hits somewhere else first and then slides up into contact with the head or neck. That wasn’t the case here. Realistically, the height, angle and speed of the tackle was almost certain to result in head or neck contact.

P.s. And I can’t emphasise enough that you should totally ignore what the pundits - especially Healey and Dallaglio - are saying on tv and do your best to listen to what the refs and TMOs are saying to each other.

Sometimes that’s difficult, because Dallaglio in particular usually loudly proclaims his version of what he thinks has happened followed by protesting that he thinks the officials are wrong over the top of what they are saying, meaning that he hasn’t heard their explanation of why they’ve made their decision (and a lot of the time neither have we because he does not know when to STFU).

But if you can hear their deliberations, the better refs make their reasoning very clear, and on dangerous tackles they usually get it right if you’ve heard the full story; I’ve not seen many this year I’ve disagreed with. They’ve settled on a standard approach of firstly establishing the entry point, then looking for mitigation, then agreeing what level of sanction that leaves them at.

https://mobile.twitter.com/LeicesterTigers/status/1515767047820619785?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1515767047820619785%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fs9e.github.io%2Fiframe%2Ftwitter.min.html1515767047820619785

I actually think Healey talks a lot of sense.
He is a self important big head though.

Dayglo on the other hand is an idiot and might as well wear a Wasps shirt when they are playing.
The most biased commentator on national TV.

Ben Kay is the best commentator on BT Sport.

PS O’Driscoll is nauseating

formerly known as Sam wrote:

No 7&1/2 wrote:Feels a bit stupid but not commented in the best moment of the weekend. The Danny Care Marcus Smith show for the length of the field try. What a score that was for Marchant. Murley did the simple right thing of making sure he didn't take the space as well and gave the ball at the righ lt time. Great all round.

It was sensational. Montpellier ambled up and as soon as Care kept the kick in Quins were off at the races, exploiting the space perfectly. It might just edge past Tigers try from a similar distance out off the scrum where Youngs bought and sold Parra with a dummy and set Potter off on a mazy run for the try if the weekend.

It strolls past it with ease!

geoff999rugby wrote:I actually think Healey talks a lot of sense.
He is a self important big head though.

Dayglo on the other hand is an idiot and might as well wear a Wasps shirt when they are playing.
The most biased commentator on national TV.

Ben Kay is the best commentator on BT Sport.

PS O’Driscoll is nauseating

Agree with that. Healy can be good, just sometimes overplays the annoying gobshite shtick. Ben Kay is class. I'm a huge fan of Monye as well. Dallaglio is up there with Guscott at how bad he is.

Can't quite believe that the person in charge of renting out the venue didn't have the foresight to check possible dates that may change due to Europe!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/61135293

Doubt if Munster are that bothered.

More income this way and I suspect a few more Munster fans than Toulouse will be in Dublin that day