France all over this match tonight. Argentina just giving away too many cards
this post was submitted on 22 Nov 2024
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I only caught the highlights, so just popping in to post Laws:
11.3: A player must not intentionally knock the ball forward with hand or arm. Sanction: Penalty. 11.4: It is not an intentional knock-on if, in the act of trying to catch the ball, the player knocks on provided that there was a reasonable expectation that the player could gain possession.
I think 11.4 is refereed way too harshly and errs more towards "there is no reasonable expectation that a player could gain possession". From the clip I saw I think its pretty obvious that the Argentine player deliberately batted the ball up, which means there was at least intent to try to regather it.
But in this case that is completely irrelevant as the ball clearly travels towards the Argentine tryline: https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxNEsyf87Fn03lEgccP0G0_FbIxLyGJe3E?si=QmATJ6QVRn2LYFgT
This is a massive botch by the refereeing team - and just should not be happening when there's a bloke in slow motion watching things. That's 7 points off the French score, and 10 minutes with the Argentine team playing with 15, a really unfair result.
Just wanting to add clarity to my opinion about the knock-on call, because its interesting seeing people defend it in the reddit threads.
11.3 just say's "must not intentionally knock the ball forward"
in World Rugby's definitions (https://passport.world.rugby/laws-of-the-game/definitions/):
Forward: Towards the opposition’s dead-ball line.
Ok great, so lots of people are saying because his hands moved the ball forward initially that it is a knock-on; but in this case the law is referring to the ball, not the hands and the ball travelled backwards.
Knock-on: When a player loses possession of the ball and it goes forward, or when a player hits the ball forward with the hand or arm, or when the ball hits the hand or arm and goes forward, and the ball touches the ground or another player before the original player can catch it.
Again, to me this is clearly talking about the the direction of the ball, not the hands or the arms.
So I think people are applying the interpretation given to passing to any action involving the ball to which my opinion is that application isn't relevant here, and is only there for passing because its almost physically impossible to pass the ball backwards while on the run and nobody wants to see a game with 80 scrums for forward passes. Which if we're being pedants would actually be 80 penalties because all of those passes are clearly intentional!
So really the only question's I have left are whether its a penalty to knock a ball into touch or not; it would be if the ball had gone dead, but it didn't it bounced over the sideline instead. I'm just struggling to find law's that mention that bit thus far!
Ah, here it is:
9.7b: A player must not: Intentionally knock, place, push or throw the ball with arm or hand from the playing area.
Now that's definitely a possibility - so perhaps the refereeing team's comms were just shocking when they started talking about the direction of the hand. But does lead to adjudicating on intent rather than facts which I just really hate in general. I'm having a hard time being sure about it, he's definitely knocked the ball away from the other player, and it definitely went out of the playing area. Was he hoping to regather it? At best I can land on a maybe, but that has me going back to my feelings about reasonable expectations and what not - I dunno.
I thought pretty harsh too, but I also thought it could have kept traveling forward and they have angles we don't always get. The french TV producers don't always show us every angle sadly
I think in the end its Pearce' description of events that has confused and got people up in arms. As I note below in actuality the only possible offence (that I could find) is a breach of 9.7b and in that case it doesn't matter if the ball goes forwards, backwards sideways, or somehow straight up and gets stuck in the roof. If the player did it with the arm or hand and the referee believes it was intentional, then its a Penalty.
I really think its not ideal that there's laws with so much subjectivity that referee's are asked to guess at intent on.
EDIT: Actually, here's a good example of a law (that's constantly ignored) but is written in a way that intent is irrelevant... 18.22: The player throwing in the ball stands on the mark of touch with both feet outside the field of play. The thrower must not step into the field of play until the ball has been thrown. Sanction: lineout or scrum.
But funnily enough, even then most hookers doing this (including the French hooker who did it all game against the ABs, are also potentially in breach of 9.7a: A player must not intentionally infringe any law of the game. It's pretty hard to accidentally start the lineout throw from in play so you could easily start throwing penalties around for that a lot :)
Or hell, start penalising the guys kicking to touch for taking the absolute piss on 20.2 A penalty or free-kick is taken from where it is awarded or anywhere behind it on a line through the mark and parallel to the touchlines. When a penalty or free-kick is taken at the wrong place, it must be re-taken. You can't tell me that the kickers that run 3-4 metres beyond the mark aren't doing that intentionally!
Yes, the red card framework removes intention. Outcomes are indisputable.
Why are Wales playing in an alternate strip, when they're at home?
WR making contestable kicks OP yet again is not what the game needed.
Sell more kits. Wales could do with the money
Yeah true; and I guess you make more money selling your away strip to 50k at home, than to the 5k supporters who might travel to Sydney :)
I'm on Scotland-A vs Chile instead of tgehe Wales match. On a knife edge with 15 to go
I know Chile are on the improve, but is the Scottish 2nd team really that bad, or were conditions the levelling factor?
Conditions were poor, but Scotland A hasn't played in like 5 years either. Got the win, they should be happy
Oh wow, we run at least one alternate team every year, does Scotland just not have the players, or is it a money thing?
We used to do it much more frequently. Scotland often play lower tiered nations with the full team, but with loads rested, and the A only coming out when playing the same week. We have the players, nearly 100 professional in Scotland alone. Money and fixtures I suspect more. The 6n has given up on A matches, with the u20 taking its place essentially. And traveling to far flung places means cash, and an invite to a tier 1 with some mid week team to play. Scotland haven't done a summer tour to NZ since like the 90s. SA last invited us and Italy together. And Australia didn't put up a midweek team for us :(
So a few factors, but great to see them last night
Its definitely expensive, maybe given how close that match was sending the A team around Europe which is a lot cheaper would be a good ploy? Good for those lower tier nations getting experience playing better teams and good for the A players to get proper touring experience together as well, even if its on busses & trains instead of planes ;)
Its a hell of a lot easier to do that than NZ bringing ours all the way up north anyway! I guess we only get away with that as it has the benefit of increasing the ABs touring player pool but Razor's getting away with murder on the squad sizes and given NZRs finances its hard to see how we can sustain the number of players & staff on tour that he wants. For the 2026 SA tour he's already talked about an All Blacks squad 60+ which is probably only viable because SA is likely not super expensive once you manage to get over there.
For sure. Scotland A vs Georgia, Portugal, Spain, Belgium, NL and Germany would be great to see from my perspective. Even if we invite them over, what's not to love? They are talking about a hotel next to Murrayfield, why not host some visitors in that? The second tier in Europe needs more games anyway, A teams from all the 6n should be stepping up imo
This Italian stadium is what NZ really lacks when it comes to footie grounds, they're right on top of the action! We're only a small poor country so have always tended to build dual purpose until recently but rectangular stadiums for rectangular fields are just sooooo much better.
And even though I love seeing the ABs scrum super dominant, god I hate scrum penalties.
Stadio Olympico is a great stadium. Very walkable from the centre of Rome too.
The new stadium in Christchurch will be a lot more like Dunedin's covered stadium so that's a step in the right direction. There's a big fight in Auckland at the moment to make a rectangular football focussed ground down in the city itself.*
Cricket NZ is pushing heavily for their favoured option which is an upgrade to Eden Park so every 3-4 years when India tours they can pack out 45-50k for a couple of T20 Internationals. But nobody wants to play or watch test cricket at Eden Park and there just aren't that many games of cricket in NZ that warrant a stadium that big. Of course that means in future we might miss out on hosting world cups but it is what it is.
Another option is for the football ground to have some expandability but in my view that inevitably ruins the whole benefit of a rectangular stadium so hopefully it doesn't come to that.
*Ie what the Labour Government offered to build for around NZ$500m or something way back in time for the 2011 RWC, but Aucklanders thumbed their nose at the idea in favour of upgrading Eden Park again.
Interesting that Barrett was immediately yellow carded for that croc roll; the sanction is only a penalty and given he didn't land on the Italian's legs, nor drove him head first into the ground etc its hard to see how that instance of it was a high degree of danger.
Have to admit I skipped. Scoreline made it look easy, but was expecting both sides to score a touch more
Well, to smash Australia was unexpected, but welcome. I still think Australia aren't bad, but also aren't good. Beating Wales and England isn't anything to shout about at the moment. It sets up the six nations to be epic. Scotland opening with Italy, and closing with the next in form team: France in Paris. February is looking very juicy
3rd tough match in a row for Australia and due to injuries this wasn't quite the same side that beat England. But I think more importantly Scotland's attacking style isn't one they are as easily able to combat. The first try to Tuipolotu in some competitions would get called back as it looks to me like he's standing well within the 10m that both attack & defence have to go back. But other than that well beaten - and they'll be disappointed for it.
I still think (even if they lose to Ireland next weekend) Australia can look at the tour as a success though, given where they've come from after Eddie at least.
Yes, beating England, thumping Wales, and turning up well to Scotland gets them a pass mark. Next week determines A, B, or C
For Scotland, I'd give them a C personally. B would be closer to SA. An A to beat them. Could have also gotten a B by holding Aus to zero tries
I think that's a good sign that expectations are changing. From an outsider looking in with a historic view of Scottish rugby performances i'd mark this Autumn as a B+/A-, because the wins against lesser teams were pretty dominant wins and there's not many teams that can push the top 4 (SA, Ire, Fra, NZ) at the moment.
Well that's what we have to do in February: earn that A+. Last weekend is vs France. Ireland are at Murrayfield this year. We have Italy at home first round. This tournament writes itself after Christmas!