Well said Shelflife

Please stop, I appreciate you're a ref but we don't need you policing every post about refereeing,
You're not unbiased in your opinions, and just because you are a referee doesn't mean you are automatically correct either.

You are incorrect in your assessment, the contact knocked the ball backwards from Dillane and there wasn't froward movement when the all bounced up.
It may suit your defence of ta fellow referee to say there was, but there simply wasn't.[/quote]

So what you are saying is that I cant offer an opinion on an open forum if its contrary to yours?

No one is unbiased in their opinions, but because I am a ref I would respectfully suggest that my law knowledge would be somewhat better than most. for example, what way the ball bounces is irrelevant when judging a knock on or not, but if the ball is dislodged and hits the tackler then that is a knock on.

Im not here to defend the referee, I just thought that we had moved on from blaming the referee for Connachts problems. We will just conveniently ignore giving them a two try start and getting 2 YCs as well as any other mistakes that we made and concentrate on a marginal call from the ref and blame him.

Just because you dont like the decision doesnt mean its the wrong decision !

No excuse for no TMO's at games at this level or even a small screen on halfway for a ref to review.

All covered by TMO or none

Shelflife wrote: Even with my greenest glasses on that's always going to be given as a knock on.

I accept your point about the lack of TMOs but to blame the ref for us not winning that is frankly ridiculous.

That's one marginal decision, even the players knew it was a knock on , why don't you blame Ultan for losing control of the ball ?

Because it's a lot easier to blame the ref rather than face up to the teams errors.

Please stop, I appreciate you're a ref but we don't need you policing every post about refereeing,
You're not unbiased in your opinions, and just because you are a referee doesn't mean you are automatically correct either.

You are incorrect in your assessment, the contact knocked the ball backwards from Dillane and there wasn't froward movement when the all bounced up.
It may suit your defence of ta fellow referee to say there was, but there simply wasn't.

Even with my greenest glasses on that's always going to be given as a knock on.

I accept your point about the lack of TMOs but to blame the ref for us not winning that is frankly ridiculous.

That's one marginal decision, even the players knew it was a knock on , why don't you blame Ultan for losing control of the ball ?

Because it's a lot easier to blame the ref rather than face up to the teams errors.

Shelflife wrote: I havent watched the match again so havent seen the decision that you speak of.

As a ref though this and Im not picking specifically on you Seapoint but in general, blaming the ref for losing a game is in most cases a crock of shite !

You cant just focus on one decision and say thats what cost us ! its very easy to pick on the man/woman in the middle and blame them !

How many missed tackles did we have ?
How many knock ons ?
How many pens did we concede ?
How many poor passes?
How many poor kicks?
How many poor linouts?
How many poor options taken ?

And I could go on and on about all the various errors that were made that impacted on the game and yet we still get the same auld shite that it was the refs fault.

Yes refs make mistakes but tend to make a hell of a sight less mistakes than the players on the pitch, the refs mistakes tend to balance out over a game.

As a ref its incredible frustrating to come off the pitch to hear players/fans/coaches tell you that they were robbed when they simply wont face up to the facts .Ive seen teams butcher 2 on1s, 3 on 1s and 4 on 1s, give away really stupid pens and still thay look for a scapegoat rather than look in the mirror. It gets very tiresome.

Refs work hard to get to the higher levels both above and below AIL level, they rarely make critical mistakes that actually cost a team a game.

Connacht didnt turn up for the first 20 odd minutes of the game, thats what cost them the game ! Not the ref !

You don't have to agree with me, but factually the ref's erroneous decision at 1:33:10 denied a legitimate try (less than six feet from the play it was clearly knocked behind the carrier in the tackle (Dillane) and did not bounce forward off the ground), so yes denied Connacht the winning and bonus point score. His decision was incorrect, you can defend him as a fellow ref all you want or point out Connacht errors. .

And also the first twenty minutes only made it difficult for us to win, I wasn't actually concerned at all in the first half as their scores came so early and felt we'd settle down (and we had a better bench).
We were much the better side on the pitch and scoreboard in the second half, and only one team was going to win the game at the end as the match stats confirm..
www.espn.co.uk/rugby/matchstats?gameId=291813&league=272073

My main point was the fact that the tournament is treated as such a second class competition that TMO's aren't available.
But I would also add that ref's in the Pro game are so used to TMO's as a backup now that often they are poor at refereeing what they are actually seeing right in front of them these day..

I havent watched the match again so havent seen the decision that you speak of.

As a ref though this and Im not picking specifically on you Seapoint but in general, blaming the ref for losing a game is in most cases a crock of shite !

You cant just focus on one decision and say thats what cost us ! its very easy to pick on the man/woman in the middle and blame them !

How many missed tackles did we have ?
How many knock ons ?
How many pens did we concede ?
How many poor passes?
How many poor kicks?
How many poor linouts?
How many poor options taken ?

And I could go on and on about all the various errors that were made that impacted on the game and yet we still get the same auld shite that it was the refs fault.

Yes refs make mistakes but tend to make a hell of a sight less mistakes than the players on the pitch, the refs mistakes tend to balance out over a game.

As a ref its incredible frustrating to come off the pitch to hear players/fans/coaches tell you that they were robbed when they simply wont face up to the facts .Ive seen teams butcher 2 on1s, 3 on 1s and 4 on 1s, give away really stupid pens and still thay look for a scapegoat rather than look in the mirror. It gets very tiresome.

Refs work hard to get to the higher levels both above and below AIL level, they rarely make critical mistakes that actually cost a team a game.

Connacht didnt turn up for the first 20 odd minutes of the game, thats what cost them the game ! Not the ref !

Shameful that games like this are decided by decisions like for the disallowed try here...
Ball definitely got knocked backwards from Dillane..

There is no structure, there is no leadership in this team. And then you look at the Eagles and you really would cry. What looks like a decent team gets hockeyed. Why is that? Its leadership again. Examples. Niyi was shocking defensively for two of the Worchester tries. Tiernan should be held responsible though. For example Niyi goes into a contact area (where he was not needed) rather than covering the defensive line for one of the Worchester tries which left everything exposed. Tiernan should have screamed at him to get back in line but instead he just lamely watched a try scored. And same again for another try. Tiernan takes the contact, ball is passed outside him, another Worchester try. Surely he should have had cover sorted. But he didn't. Who is leading this team. And as for the Eagles, it is clear and obvious that there is nobody on that coaching staff that can even teach the basics of defence. So its not terribly surprising when the first team is rejigged it becomes complete mayhem

The second try that Worcester score literally makes me cry how bad we were for it

For anyone who wasn't at the game here's the game in full.

Borders no.2 wrote: There was some coverage on tg4 which was fairly limited this evening. Their 3rd try was laughable from a defensive pov. Any amount of space for Worcester on our left wing to saunter in for a try despite us being up a player at the time. Niyi showed what he can do turning back foot ball into a try.

Hadn't realised before the game that Worcester had a 4g Pitch, the other surprise on realising this is why Matt Healy wasn't selected. Sort of surface that is designed for his mix of footwork and acceleration. Against the Worcester speedster (fairly rapid back three) Darragh looked ponderous by comparison. For me he's a decent fullback, but only an OK wing, and certainly not on firm surfaces that are advantageous to serious speedsters...

Borders no.2 wrote: There was some coverage on tg4 which was fairly limited this evening. Their 3rd try was laughable from a defensive pov. Any amount of space for Worcester on our left wing to saunter in for a try despite us being up a player at the time. Niyi showed what he can do turning back foot ball into a try.

I burst out laughing when the Worcester fan behind me roared out "Stop kicking the ball to that bastid!" After Niyi took off down the tram tracks for the 3rd or 4th time.

There was some coverage on tg4 which was fairly limited this evening. Their 3rd try was laughable from a defensive pov. Any amount of space for Worcester on our left wing to saunter in for a try despite us being up a player at the time. Niyi showed what he can do turning back foot ball into a try.

Any footage of this match available anywhere??

pinky wrote: Not sure why we didn't take the 3 at the end. Savage game though. Shoulda won it, but also shoulda got stuffed. Sure we'll call it a draw, and GBP15 well spent.
Edit: or in some people's case, GBP0.

Was thinking the same, Looks like we learned nothing from that Toulouse game last year. It's poor on field decision making from whoever was captain at that stage