Cabhan says...

Editor, why don't you put the name of the author of these articles? I'd like to avoid any more tripe written by whoever this clown is.

Posted 14:36 26th June 2012

HenryFitz says...

I'm curious. When did Ireland benefit from the chargedown law?

To be fair to referees, they can only referee what they see. Poite saw the knock-on. Owens did not see the face-pulling/gouge. That was the point of Toland's article. It was mildly critical of a referee for poor decision-making when he had a good view of proceedings. Given the importance of Owens's errors, I suppose it's lucky he made them against Ireland rather than New Zealand, as Wayne Barnes could testify.

"Fortunately for us all, the wars of words reached their peak just after it as well - we doubt you'll find any Irishman willing to talk rugby for a couple of weeks after the third."

This is highly disingenuous. I'm sure everyone at PR was glad of the article hits.

To prematurely talk rugby, the McCaw law had another success on Saturday with Ruchie tackling and coming in the side for another IRB-enabled mega-steal. Not wishing to be more than mildly critical in case one of the elite referees takes umbrage, but that law is unfair and misguided. Similar to the occasion when John Barclay stole the laid egg against France this year, there was no legal way for the supporting Irish player to clear Ruchie out of the ruck, as Mr McCaw was coming in from the side, and the supporting Irish player would have had to come in the side too to get at him. Why privilege the tackler to this extent? The only way for an attacking side to guard against this kind of trickery is to have at least two supporting players, one for either side of the ruck, coming directly behind the ball-carrier. 1 defender routinely trumps 2 attackers, so after every breakaway you have slow ball and the probability of a turnover. Unless you're New Zealand, in which case the support are permitted to dive straight over the top to protect the egg.

Posted 14:08 26th June 2012

GCP_JONES says...

If Ireland were to host a test series against a team ranked 8 places below them,they would hope to but a cricket score on them too.NZ are ranked 1st and were 8th for a resaon. While the AB's were very impressive I wonder what good those test matches against such inept opposition would have done to Steve Hansens side?

Our national team has gone backwards since 2009, with maybe 2 good performances a year. How can a group of people who do nothing else for a living but play rugby put in such inept performances which reached its Zenith on Saturday.

This is simply not good enough, I for one am sick and tired of the plucky Irish Tag and their great fans rubbish.Kidney and his coaching staff not to mention the IRFU have to accept that they are ultimately at fault here, he should do whats right and resign, but as anybody with any knowledge of Irish life will tell you. people in the corridors of power don't do resignation.

Posted 12:44 26th June 2012

crunchfit says...

It's not Toland's job to be biased (Irish rugby writers also highlight the negatives usually), but I didn't agree with what he wrote. And Kiss was being an idiot. Wish they'd all just shut up and deal with it. They just make themselves look bad.

Seeing as you're referencing the McCaw gouge, don't forget to include this (while you're going on about bias and agendas) - 57th minute to see for yourselves: http://i48.tinypic.com/2j5mc74.png

Posted 12:31 26th June 2012