@Bones Godwin Schmozmin
His Bobness
Posts
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@booboo In law, making a mistake in the process precludes the possibility of a correct decision. That’s how appeal lawyers win cases. Conversely, while a proper application of process does not automatically imply a correct decision, it makes it harder to argue for a reversal unless you have other evidence. In this case, the process was incorrect. The try should have stood. If you say the decision was ‘correct’ we get back to subjective judgements and arguments about who is in charge here.
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@Duluth A rather large whoopsie, though, wouldn’t you say? “Oh dear, we said we wouldn’t invade Poland but we did. And oh, we started another World War. Sorry about that.”
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The TMO system is clearly a farce. I agree entirely with Steve Hansen that it is resulting in the game being refereed in replay and I agree with Nigel Owens that is undermining the referee, in this case the best and fairest in the world. How typical, also, that World Rugby is saying nothing on the record about this. They love talking about accountability and transparency but never practise it themselves, preferring to leave the professionals appointed to adjudicate the game to take all the flak when they are just doing their jobs. Nothing can take away from the Springboks victory. They deserved it for their dogged defence and smart game management. But it rankles when such fundamental errors are made, and no-one wants to admit the mistake. That leaves a bad smell around the code and in its greatest single showcase, no less. If I were a lawyer I’d be thinking about a class action to clear out that board.
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@akan004 Interesting that Razor chose McDonald where there seems little evidence for the selection. Is this because they’re old Crusader mates or is there a real respect there?
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@Chris Yes, but don’t they play the 20-minute red card in the Rugby Championship as well?
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Scotty Stephenson on TVNZ breakfast: ‘Barnes is a great coach, but World Rugby has hung him out to dry with a ridiculous TMO system that turned the game into a crime scene.’
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@canefan Oh, I agree with you on profitability. Most of the clubs in the UK are basically bankrupt. World Rugby itself is intensely profitable. But that’s the gravy train.
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@canefan Depends on how you measure it - television audiences, revenues, crowd totals, rights revenues. I’ve seen plenty of commentary putting the Rugby World Cup third behind the Summer Olympics and Football World Cup. But then you have the Tour de France, Wimbledon, Daytona etc; Put it this way, it’s significant. There’s a lot of money involved, enough you would think to ensure they’re clear, consistent, comprehensible and transparent rules, along with competent officials to administer them. As to a Commonwealth-only sport, South Africa is not a member. Neither is France or Ireland or Argentina. There’s four of the top eight.
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@canefan The bigger sporting event.
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@canefan Netball soon will be.
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Who wants to fund a class action against Bill Beaumont and the World Rugby board?
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So can we agree that the finale of the world’s biggest sporting event after the Olympics and Football World Cup - one in which tens of millions of dollars has been invested and which tens of thousands of people spent a fortune on attending - has just been decided by a little man in a back room on a laptop who doesn’t know the rules. What an absolute crock.
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Regarding the Reason article, what exactly do the rules say about how and when the TMO can intervene? And how far after a try ruled as such can check back on knock-ons, forward passes etc? Because the way this code is going, I can foresee these tinpot frustrated schoolmasters leafing back to the Middle Ages to prove their points. Honestly, where is the transparency here? It’s a clown show. (Apologies, just saw BooBoo’s clarification. Seems we really were robbed in that case). Replay next Saturday?
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The very fact we’re having this conversation about the increasingly restricted tactics in rugby union at this level and the increasingly high-profile role of the adjudicators tells you there is something rotten in the state of Dublin.
There’s nothing wrong with the Boks, but this style of play is what the rules produces. Constant box kicks, up and unders, scrum infringements, kicks to the corner and rolling mauls, and an emphasis on rolling mauls, are what wins games. Of course, all of those tactics are completely legitimate and well done SA for perfecting them. But there’s a clear imbalance there. And that’s a result of the stultifying rules that elevate defence over attack. As for the yellow and red cards, the rule-makers have lost their way. A completely understandable desire to protect players against head injury has resulted in a lottery in which there is no consistency - not only from one game to the next, but within games. Referees are not sovereign anymore. There is a constant voice in their ear second-guessing their judgement. I don’t think they can go on like this, but I have been saying that for years
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@Billy-Tell Yes, Portugal showed the way. They were playing like the ABs. Look at this way. Which country do the minnows and kids in backyards aspire to be? Where do the dreams reside? The way the Erasmus-coached Boks play or the way the ABs play? Which side inspires the advertisers?
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@Billy-Tell Agree. But whether it’s lack of bums on seats or greedy management discounting imagined future profits by paying excessively for players today, it adds up to the same commercial problem - diminishing margins and a cadre of club owners squeezing the lemon too hard for short-term profit. I still think the game is buggered. I predict the new global competition will be a failure, simply because WR is doing what it always does - fattening the calf at the centre and starving everybody else to keep its cadre of pigs at the trough in business and first class airfares. I stand by what I said. Rugby Union is ripe for a disruptor to simplify the rules, reward endeavour and creativity and market the game more broadly. As it stands, they’re playing at being a mass market sport with a mass market budget in a narrowcast universe.
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@Billy-Tell Sure, the RWC brings in big TV revenues. But most of the English clubs are financially insolvent. Both NZ and SA rugby are running significant losses. As for Australian Rugby, the last rites are close to being read.
The RWC is a separate commercial entity which extracts every last dollar from its many stakeholders and which jealously protects its privileged status. If I were a private equity manager, I’d look at disruption.
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@kev It also ensures that only one style of play dominates in World Cups. The Springboks individually have fantastic skills and are capable of so much more than that. But Erasmus, justifiably cynical about how rugby is run, has developed techniques to squeeze out games in knock-out competitions by playing very little actual rugby. And that’s because he knows the game’s rule-makers and power centres have engineered it to produce an attritional battle that caters to the Northern Hemisphere mindset. Watch a game with a non-rusted on and see how they react to the increasingly stop-start and judicial-dominated nature of the event. Genuine curiosity at first gives way to quiet bemusement, then dismissal. If someone like me now dreads watching international rugby at this level (waiting for the inevitable voice of God from up in the box directing the referee to another card) I’m pretty sure that more footloose people looking to spend their (increasingly limited) discretionary income are going to tune out completely and look somewhere else for entertainment. Because that’s what this game is at the end of the day - entertainment. And if it doesn’t entertain beyond you few diehards that like watching scrum penalties, kicks for the corner and rolling mauls all day, it’s going to die a slow painful death.
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@kev Your suggestions make absolute sense, but I fear we are talking to a brick wall. It’s hard not to suspect, as you say, that the bureaucrats making these decisions are doing so with a completely different conception of what rugby should be. Clearly, there are no marketing people involved. Their sheer pigheadedness and refusal to see reason suggest a circling of the wagons by certain of the game’s powerbrokers defending vested interests. It’s corruption or incompetence, or perhaps a combination of them both. Private equity needs to get involved and roll some of these people.
RWC Final: All Blacks v Springboks
RWC Final: All Blacks v Springboks
RWC Final: All Blacks v Springboks
RWC Final: All Blacks v Springboks
RWC Final: All Blacks v Springboks
RWC Final: All Blacks v Springboks
RWC Final: All Blacks v Springboks
RWC Final: All Blacks v Springboks
RWC Final: All Blacks v Springboks
RWC Final: All Blacks v Springboks
RWC Final: All Blacks v Springboks
RWC Final: All Blacks v Springboks
RWC Final: All Blacks v Springboks
RWC Final: All Blacks v Springboks
The Current State of Rugby
RWC Final: All Blacks v Springboks
RWC Final: All Blacks v Springboks
RWC Final: All Blacks v Springboks
RWC Final: All Blacks v Springboks
RWC Final: All Blacks v Springboks